The Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Association reports CMS will allow an exception to new prior notification rules.

On May 18, CMS required ASCs to provide patients with advance notice and information on their rights and any physician financial interest in the ASC before the date of a surgery -- with no exceptions (subscribers can read more, here). But now CMS has posted an exception in a May 15 memo on "State Operations Manual (SOM) Appendix L, Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASC) Comprehensive Revision."

If you're like me and you've been waiting for the latest installment of the Comprehensive Error Rate Test (CERT) report, you can stop waiting and move on to other things. It's not coming.

Over the last few years, a mid-year report on improper payments was released in mid-May followed by a final report in mid-November. CMS informs Part B News in an e-mail that the agency is evaluating how error rates are calculated and there will be no mid-year report this year.

The American Academy of Family Physicians AAFP sent the Senate Finance Committee a statement in response to the committee's options paper to reform the health care delivery system (subscribers can read our coverage here). You can download the AAFP's statement by clicking here, but here are two highlights:

The White House is moving forward with HHS appointments by naming Dr. Thomas Frieden, the current New York City Health Department commissioner, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We're still waiting for a CMS administrator to be named.

Any suggestions?

Here is the latest H1N1 influenza virus (aka swine flu) breakdown from the CDC. Subscribers can read our coverage, which includes Medicare billing advice, here and here.