To avoid caps without exceptions, the Congress should:
- reduce the therapy cap for physical therapy and speech-language pathology services combined and the separate cap for occupational therapy to $1,270 in 2013. These caps should be updated each year by the Medicare Economic Index.
- direct the Secretary to implement a manual review process for requests to exceed cap amounts, and provide the resources to CMS for this purpose.
- permanently include services delivered in hospital outpatient departments under therapy caps.
- apply a multiple procedure payment reduction of 50 percent to the practice expense portion of outpatient therapy services provided to the same patient on the same day.