CMS adjusts the national prospective 60-day episode payment rate to account for the following:
(a) HHA case-mix using a case-mix index to explain the relative resource utilization of different patients. To address changes to the case-mix that are a result of changes in the coding or classification of different units of service that do not reflect real changes in case-mix, the national prospective 60-day episode payment rate will be adjusted downward as follows:
(1) For CY 2008, the adjustment is 2.75 percent.
(2) For CY 2009 and CY 2010, the adjustment is 2.75 percent in each year.
(3) For CY 2011, the adjustment is 2.71 percent.
(b) Geographic differences in wage levels using an appropriate wage index based on the site of service of the beneficiary. [72 FR 49879, Aug. 29, 2007]