Hospital inpatient and outpatient services (2)

To restore budget neutrality, the Congress should require the Secretary to fully offset increases in inpatient payments due to hospitals’ documentation and coding improvements. To accomplish this goal, the Secretary must reduce payment rates in the inpatient prospective payment system by the same percentage (not to exceed 2 percentage points) each year in 2011, 2012, and 2013. The lower rates would remain in place until overpayments are fully recovered.