On Mondays, the facility where I work performs a self-audit on one- and two-day admissions that occurred over the weekend. We do this before the bill is dropped. If we find that an inpatient admission should have observation or outpatient, the billing department uses the appropriate codes for the claim and bills for Medicare Part B. Should we notify the patient of this change? Do we need to involve the physician who wrote the order?
Marketing is everywhere—even in healthcare. It’s an invaluable tool to attract and retain patients and a routine part of advertising new services and products but it’s also strictly regulated under HIPAA. Failure to properly train and educate staff can lead to HIPAA violations and the kind of bad press that’s difficult to put a positive spin on.
The Medicare Outpatient Observation Notice is back and your organization should be ready to use it to comply with the NOTICE Act no later than March 8, roughly 90 days from the December 7 final approval of the form by CMS.
