First Look: What's Up with Original Medicare for 2014 from 30,000 Feet

In earlier posts on this blog I took a first look at 2014 for Part C Medicare health plans (here and here) and Part D standalone prescription drug plans, in anticipation of annual enrollment beginning in October 2013.  Annual enrollment for Original Medicare Parts A and B occurs in the winter of each year (as opposed to the fall for Parts C and D). So the rule-making for 2014 for Original Medicare Parts A and B lags behind that for C and D. Final rules will not be released until late in 2013. 

A set of rules released July 8 (to which I link above) is only for outpatient hospital payments, ambulatory surgical centers, and some other esoteric stuff and runs over 700 pages.  Separate lengthy rule documents for skilled nursing facilities, long-term care facilities and acute inpatient stays for 2014 were issued in May 2013 and comments are in process (and in some cases closed). Other rules documents cover home health care, hospice and psychiatric facilities. The doctor rules come out July 25.

Unlike with Medicare Parts C and D, you don't have any decisions to make when it comes to the changes to Original Medicare. They will be what they will be. But you will be affected by these changes. Just as an example, the Medicare bureaucracy says the approximately 4000 outpatient sites in the U.S. will get about 2% higher payments from the Part B Medicare trust fund in 2014 than they are estimated to get this year. You (or most likely your supplemental insurance) pay 20% of those increased rates.

The Medicare bureaucracy also says these 4000 sites will take in about 8% more in revenue in 2014 from all sources than they are estimated to take in this year. The difference between the 2% higher rates and the 8% higher income is based on higher Medicare enrollment and some other factors.