I bet you weren't expecting Santa to bring you this:

Your Medicare payments are safe from the 27.4% sustainable growth rate (SGR) cut, but not for long. After nearly a weeklong stalemate, Congress passed a bill Dec. 22 to keep the SGR cut at bay, extend payroll tax breaks and unemployment benefits through February. This means you and your peers will see a 0% update on your Medicare payments until March 1 unless Congress votes to extend the “doc fix.”

Considering throwing your name into the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) applicant pool? Curious to see what type of coordinated efforts across multiple providers CMS has in mind?

You can now read HHS’ list of 32 inaugural ACOs, all of whom were chosen due to being established partnerships with “experience offering coordinated, patient-centered care, and operating in ACO-like arrangements,” according to a CMS Innovation Center statement.

It’s that time of year again, when there’s a crisp in the air and Congress performs the same song and dance around preventing massive cuts to your Medicare payments due to the sustainable growth rate (SGR).

UPDATE: The House shot down the Senate's two-month payroll tax bill late Dec. 19, which would have prevented the SGR cut from taking affect through February. The House is now deciding whether to resubmit their original proposal which would give your payments a 0% update for two years.

Right now, Congress has lumped in an SGR fix to the 2012 Physician Fee Schedule final rule that would prevent a 27.4% cut to your Medicare payments starting Jan. 1, 2012 into the payroll tax bill.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a version of this bill which would have kept the SGR at bay for two years (PBN 12/5/11).  The Senate passed a two-month rendition of it on Dec. 18. The Senate’s version would keep your payments safe from the nearly 30% cut for two months, expiring in February 2012. The House, which has threatened to kill the Senate’s bill, is now reviewing it and should vote late Dec. 19. Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has also vowed to submit a new version of the bill after the New Year.

If you thought Highmark Medicare Services (HMS) was taking over as your new Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) next year, not so fast.

TrailBlazer Health Enterprises, which was set to lose its four-state Southwest jurisdiction to HMS, protested the MAC Jurisdiction H transition to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), leading the GAO to issue a stop work order to HMS on Nov. 28.

What this means for you: If you reside in Jurisdiction 4 or 7 – both set to transition over to HMS – you will continue to bill your current MACs until the GAO issues a ruling on the protest. The GAO must rule by March 1, 2012 at the latest.

You officially have only 20 days left to comply with the version HIPAA 5010 standard. But even though HHS’ Office of E-Health Standards and Services, which enforces HIPAA compliance, delayed the HIPAA 5010 enforcement date to March 31, 2012 it’s still unclear as to whether payers, namely CMS will handle 4010 claims come Jan. 1, 2012.