Late last night, congressional conferees reached an agreement on the payroll tax and doc fix issues. According to sources, the draft deal provides for the therapy cap exceptions process, as well as the doc fix, to be in place until the end of the year.

In addition, Provider sources report that skilled nursing facility reimbursement for bad debt for dual-eligible beneficiaries will be reduced over three years until it reaches 65 percent coverage, in 2015. For those individuals who are not dual eligible, reimbursement will drop from 70 percent to 65 percent this year.

According to the American Health Care Association (AHCA), the bad debt provision affects about half of the states. These states’ Medicaid programs do not cover bad-debt copays, according to AHCA.