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Tag Archives: 24-hour benchmark
“Finally Friday!” CY2015 OPPS Proposed Rule Report & Confusion on Status Decisions
Two Special Reports, Two Special Guests: Expert Physician Advisor, Dr. Deepak Pahuja Returned to Our Show: Common Misconceptions in Admission Decisions Hear Dr. Pahuja’s Latest Recommendations to Dispel Them Get the Handouts & Watch the Replay Here Dr. Deepak Pahuja, … Continue reading
“Finally Friday!” Decision Trees for 2-Midnight Rule Conversions
Joining us this week was a panel of experts discussing our handouts, decision trees for: Day One Day Two Day Three & Beyond Conversion of OP to IP Find the PDFs below – download and post, copy, distribute, whatever – … Continue reading
Posted in Finally Friday!
Tagged 24-hour benchmark, 48-hour rule, abby pendleton, accretive pas, appeal academy, bill malm, CMS, CMS-1599, craneware, ernie de los santos, executive health resources, finally friday, jessica gustafson, recovery analytics, ron hirsch, sharon easterling, steve meyerson, tom mccarter
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Preventive Measures Are The Only Good Answer, Right?
I keep seeing articles and speakers give the advice to “Appeal, Appeal, Appeal“, even to Medicare beneficiaries, who are getting hit with co-pay bills for outpatient services, when they feel that an admission should have been considered an inpatient admission. … Continue reading
“Finally Friday!” Sharon Easterling’s 5-Ws Strategy for Documentation
This session was recorded on Friday, October 18, 2013. Denial & Appeal: How Do Auditors See It All? PLUS: Sharon Easterling’s 5-Ws for Documentation This week we invited our good friend and sometimes auditor Bill Malm, ND, RN, … Continue reading
“Finally Friday!” The First Ten Days Under 2 Midnights
This session was recorded on Friday, October 11, 2013. The First Ten Days Under 2 Midnights How’s it going? This week we invited some providers, to get a sense of what’s happening, now that the start date has … Continue reading
“Finally Friday!” How To Document Medical Necessity
This session was recorded on Friday, October 4, 2013. How To Document Medical Necessity This week we wanted to discuss the need or LACK of need for Criteria, since there’s been talk lately about whether you even NEED to … Continue reading
The 48-Hour Benchmark: Is This New Or Not?
For weeks now, we’ve all been talking about the “changes” and “new” challenges being presented to us by the newest ruling from The Secretary, CMS-1599, the 2014 IPPS Final Rule. The topics of most interest have concerned the “new benchmark” — the moving of the threshold, used for decades by physicians to judge if an inpatient admission could be considered a “reasonable and necessary” step. Before October 1, 2013, the benchmark was “24 hours” — sort of. Ok, actually it was more like “overnight.” But no matter. The idea was, is the patient sick enough to need to stay overnight in the hospital?
Anyway. You know all that or you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog. But the fuss is all about the fact that the Secretary has added language to the regulations that make
(a) physician orders a clear and specific requirement for payment of Medicare claims,
(b) a 24-hour period to qualify as appropriate for inpatient billing must include at least 2 Midnights (which actually makes it 25-hours, but who’s counting), and
(c) a very specific set of statements, called a “certification,” which must all be present somewhere in the medical record and signed by a specific subset of practitioners.
So the question is, is any of this new? The answer is this: Some is new, some is not, the language is certainly new. The need for a physician order is not really new, but the language in the reg is new. the need for “24-hours” is not new, but one can argue that, and the second midnight being included is certainly new. What about the certification? Well, that’s kind of new and kind of not. Yes, it’s kind of always been there, but then all this new language is new, and certainly the requirement for payment is both surprising and maddening, especially considering the “specific subset” of practitioners who will be acceptable signatories is new.
Next question: Why did CMS add this new language? Continue reading
