Temporary Halt of EPMs & More

Tuesday, January 24, 2017 | Joel Sauer

On January 20, 2017 the Trump administration issued a memorandum to all federal agencies ordering, among other things, the temporary postponement of the effective dates of all recently published regulations that, as of January 20, 2017, had not become effective. The memorandum postpones the effective dates for such regulations for a period of 60 days from the date of the memorandum, January 20, 2017. See the full memorandum here.

Regarding the AMI and CABG EPMs, the effective date of the regulations implementing the models was February 18, 2017. Therefore, those regulations are subject to yesterday's memorandum and, consequently, the earliest the regulations could become effective is on or about March 21, 2017.

As you know, the first performance years under the EPMs do not begin until July 1, 2017. It seems possible that postponing the effective date of the regulations until March 21, 2017 would not necessarily cause a delay in the commencement of the first performance years for the EPMs. However, the purpose of the 60-day postponement is to review "questions of fact, law, and policy" raised by the regulations. Accordingly, the memorandum also states that federal agencies "should consider" issuing a rule to delay the effective dates of the regulations subject to the memorandum beyond the 60-day period. Furthermore, the memorandum states that federal agencies "should" consider "potentially proposing further notice-and-comment rulemaking" (in other words, federal agencies, including CMS, are authorized to make substantive changes to the regulations that are subject to the memorandum – which could include the repeal of any such regulations).

In sum, the AMI and CABG EPMs are "on hold" at least until on or about March 21, if not longer. We will keep you posted as developments occur via our EPM page.

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