Medicare program; limitations on reimbursable hospital costs and the rate of hospital cost increases--HCFA. Final rules.

These rule revise and establish as final rules the interim rules published September 30, 1982 (47 FR 43282) implementing section 101 of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. These rules make exceptions available to hospitals consistent with the new cost limits (published elsewhere in this issue of the Federal Register), specifically exempt from those cost limits rural hospitals with less than 50 beds in existence as of the enactment of the law, and establish a ceiling on the allowable annual rate of increase in operating costs per case for inpatient hospital services. The rate of increase ceiling takes from the form of a target amount of cost per case against which a hospital's incurred cost per case will be compared, and includes incentives for hospitals to keep their cost increases below the target rate.