The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services made headlines last Friday with the official unveiling of a comprehensive new regulation that will introduce major changes in the way in which clinicians -- physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and therapists -- are compensated under the Medicare program.
The regulation, measuring almost 2,400 pages long, is designed to implement bipartisan legislation, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama just last year. Although the regulation will take years to roll out and its success has yet to be determined, it nevertheless represents one of the single biggest reforms in the 50-year history of the Medicare program.