HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.C.R. NO.

55

TWENTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE, 2009

S.D. 1

STATE OF HAWAII

 

 

 

 

 

HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

 

REQUESTING THE CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES TO INCREASE REIMBURSEMENT TO HAWAII PROVIDERS.

 

 

 


     WHEREAS, federal statutes require the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, through its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to establish the Medicare fee schedules for all Medicare localities in the nation and its territories; and

 

     WHEREAS, under the fee schedules, each medical service, treatment, or procedure, as identified by its Current Procedural Terminology code, is assigned a fee which is basically the product of a set of relative value units multiplied by a conversion factor; and

 

     WHEREAS, each fee is adjusted upward or downward for each Medicare locality through a set of geographic practice cost indices, which are multiplied with the corresponding set of relative value units; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services establishes the numeric values for the relative value units, conversion factors, and geographic practice cost indices; and

 

     WHEREAS, the geographic practice cost indices, in particular, reflect the relative cost differences in a given area in comparison to the national average such that an area with costs above the national average would have an index greater than 1.00 while an area with costs below the national average would have an index less than 1.00; and

 

     WHEREAS, however, the geographic practice cost index for the physician work component in 2009 now reflects a 1.00 floor for all Medicare localities; and

 

     WHEREAS, the geographic practice cost indices for the single Medicare locality of Hawaii and Guam in 2009 are established at 1.00 for the physician work component, 1.161 for the practice expense component, and 0.665 for the malpractice cost component; and

 

     WHEREAS, in contrast, the average geographic practice cost indices among the eighty-nine Medicare localities in the nation and its territories in 2009 are 1.017 for the physician work component, 1.009 for the practice expense component, and 0.894 for the malpractice cost component; and

 

     WHEREAS, accordingly, the single locality of Hawaii and Guam is below the national average for the physician work and malpractice cost components but higher than the national average for the practice expense component of the geographic practice cost indices; and

 

     WHEREAS, the United States Secretary, through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is statutorily required to periodically review and adjust the geographic practice cost indices for all fee schedule areas; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-fifth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2009, the Senate concurring, that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is requested to raise the geographic practice cost indices for Hawaii upon its next periodic review and adjustment by, among other things, considering whether Hawaii should be established as a single locality separate from Guam; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the members of Hawaii's congressional delegation.

Report Title: 

Medicaid Reimbursement