A proposed CMS change to the 2017 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule will require surgeons document and report data every 10 minutes for new billing codes (G-codes). The penalty for not submitting this data is 5% of a facility’s Medicare reimbursement.
CMS announced on September 8 that it had finalized new emergency response requirements for healthcare providers participating in the Medicare or Medicaid system.The new rules go into effect on November 8, 2016 and must be implemented by November 15, 2017.
The Mayo Clinic experienced a highly publicized case of drug diversion back in 2008, where a nurse was caught stealing fentanyl from patients about to have a catheter inserted. The incident prompted the Mayo Clinic to take proactive steps toward drug diversion.
John Hopkins researchers looked at three years and 4,500 acute-care facilities worth of readmission and mortality data, finding that hospitals with high readmission rates tended to have lower mortality rates as well.
was denied full Joint Commission accreditation, in part due to its handling of fire drills. The Joint Commission has released a new fire drill matrix for facilities to forestall confusion on survey day.
A finalized Joint Commission standard, along with proposed CMS regulations, place more emphasis on program leadership and providing resources for measurement and action
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 9
After months of delays, CMS in July publicly released its hospital star ratings system on its Hospital Compare website. The public can now see the Hospital Compare overall rating for 3,662 hospitals across the U.S.
The release came after several key...
Briefings on Accreditation & Quality - Volume 27, Issue 9
Attendees at this year's American Society of Healthcare Engineering conference were caught by surprise when George Mills, the Joint Commission's director of engineering, announced that Plans for Improvement (PFI) would be eliminated from its survey process. Starting August 1,...