CMS Finalizes Changes to Supervision Requirements for Outpatient Therapeutic Services

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized its proposal to change the required level of supervision for 27 hospital outpatient therapeutic services from direct supervision to general supervision, states a May 22, 2012, guidance document from CMS. As required by a process established in the 2012 Outpatient Prospective Payment System (OPPS) Final Rule, CMS’s Hospital Outpatient Payment Panel evaluated the supervision requirements for individual hospital outpatient therapeutic services and recommended that the supervision requirements of 28 Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) codes be downgraded to only require general supervision.