Network devices make life easier in many ways, but they can be a significant challenge for security officers. These devices must be carefully managed and security officers need to be kept in the loop when any decision is made to add a device to the network.
Organizations today are putting a lot of energy into getting ready to comply with the NOTICE Act and Medicare Outpatient Observation Notice (MOON) guidelines, which go into effect on March 8 (see related story on p. 1). But this new notification requirement is giving them a related headache to contend with as well: issues related to the three-day qualifying inpatient stay required for Medicare coverage of the SNF benefit. The NOTICE Act is intended to ensure patients are aware of their status and the financial implications it may have for them—in particular, how it might affect their postacute care options.
No later than Wednesday of this week—March 8, 2017—hospitals (including critical access hospitals [CAH]) are required to meet the newest of Medicare’s numerous hospital notification requirements. Under the Notice of Observation Treatment and Implication for Care Eligibility (NOTICE) Act, hospitals must provide both written and oral notice regarding the outpatient nature of observation and the resulting implications to all Medicare beneficiaries who receive observation services for more than 24 hours. This notice must be provided in a prescribed form (the Medicare Outpatient Observation Notice [MOON]) within 36 hours of when observation care began and must meet certain additional requirements with respect to delivery, documentation, etc.
In several recent reports, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) determined that providers are, on average, variant from expected volumes on both short stay inpatient and long stay observation cases. What was not made clear in the OIG report is the reason why it believes such variances exist. The answer to this question likely rests within the details of how hospitals have adjusted (or not adjusted) to the use and application of “new criteria” in their daily and ongoing Medicare billing compliance processes.
This week’s Medicare updates include the April 2017 Update of the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System; the April 2017 Update of the Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System; an National Coverage Analysis for Supervised Exercise Therapy (SET) for Symptomatic Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD); and more!
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are one of the oldest cyberattacks in the books, but they’re still common and can knock out vital services, leaving patients and providers unable to access EHRs and other systems.
