Medicare program; update of ratesetting methodology, payment rates, payment policies, and the list of covered procedures for ambulatory surgical centers effective October 1, 1998; extension of comment period--HCFA. Notice of extension of comment period for proposed rule.

This notice extends the comment period for a proposed rule published in the Federal Register on June 12, 1998 (63 FR 32290). In that rule we proposed to: Update the criteria for determining which surgical procedures can be appropriately and safely performed in an ambulatory surgical center (ASC): Make additions to and deletions from the current list of Medicare covered ASC procedures based on the revised criteria; Rebase the ASC payment rates using cost, charge, and utilization data collected by a 1994 survey of ASCs; Refine the ratesetting methodology that was implemented by a final notice published on February 8, 1990 in the Federal Register; Require that ASC payment, coverage, and wage index updates be implemented annually on January 1 rather than having these updates occur randomly throughout the year; Reduce requlatory burden; and Make several technical policy changes. This proposed rule implements requirements of section 1833(i) (1) and (2) of the Social Security Act. The comment period is extended for 30 days.