Hospitals got a last-minute reprieve from the MOON notification requirement, which was set to go into effect August 6. Citing the need for additional time to revise the standardized notification form that hospitals will need to use to notify patients about the financial implications of being assigned to observation services, CMS moved back the start date for the requirement in the 2017 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule to "no later than 90 days," after the final version of the form is approved.
How should case managers communicate with a patient when he or she lacks decision-making capacity but has no court-appointed guardian or power of attorney?
New CMS data revealed that efforts associated with the Affordable Care Act and Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program that 49 states and the District of Columbia have seen a drop in readmission rates.
The Independence at Home Demonstration, which is affiliated with the Affordable Care Act, is making strides toward providing chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries with primary care services at home and has also lowered Medicare costs, according to CMS.
Physician advisors (PA) are an important ally for case managers at many organizations when it comes to ensuring proper patient status. But one organization has greatly expanded the role of PAs to include performance improvement and as a result has seen improvements in everything from readmissions to length of stay.
Assigning the correct patient status is a constant challenge for hospitals and the case managers who are charged with ensuring these decisions are accurate.
Hospitals were struggling this summer to comply with the Notice of Observation Treatment and Implication for Care Eligibility (NOTICE) Act, which was signed by President Barack Obama August 6, requiring hospitals to provide a verbal and written notice of outpatient status to any patient in observation who has been in the hospital for more than 24 hours.
