Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
Over the next few days I’ll be pushing out a series of posts as my schedule permits, on the implications of health care reform for various industry segments. These are not meant as in-depth analyses, more of a “summary” of the key points. Reconciliation Act: This Bill has yet to pass the Senate and as a … Read more
It has been a world-wind few days (make that a week) analyzing all that is or was, health care reform. In some respects, I’m glad that the meat of health care reform is done for now though admittedly, I’m disappointed at the outcome. Suffice to say, I will catch-up on the ramifications of the legislation … Read more
I am writing various updates and analysis on the health care reform legislation as it moves toward a potential weekend vote in Congress on the Apex Healthcare E-News site. Readers can follow this link to read my analysis http://wp.me/PD9Ac-3A. Check back often throughout the next few days as comments/updates will be added as important news … Read more
Lately I’ve been running across intermittent publications/blog posts, etc. regarding a general decline in hospice census. At the end of this post, I’ve attached a couple of links for anyone who wishes to see some examples of what I’ve been reading. Naturally, being the curious consultant and health policy junkie that I am, I started … Read more
Earlier this week, Medpac (Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission) released its report to Congress. Primary among Medpac’s duties is its provision of recommendations regarding payment updates under Medicare. Below, I have broken out and summarized the recommendations. Hospice (the points below the first bullet are continued recommendations from 2009) 2011 rate is the market-basket less a … Read more
Last week I wrote about hospitals using “observation stays” as a means of dealing with the potential risk of reimbursement penalties imposed by CMS for certain re-admissions. The focus of my post was on how the trend of hospitals using observation stays to avoid CMS scrutiny (and penalties) was impacting Medicare admissions at SNFs. I … Read more
An issue that I am fielding a fair number of inquiries about lately involves Medicare patients spending more than three days in a hospital, subsequently ‘discharged’ to a SNF and the SNF learning later that the patient was never technically admitted to the hospital. Mostly, the inquiries I am getting are along the line of “what’s … Read more
The 2009-2011 Wisconsin budget (Act 28) incorporates a specific change to how the state defines property tax exemption for non-profit senior housing projects. Up to this point, the existing statutory law was vague and providers were left to contend with a precedent set by an even more vague Supreme Court decision (Columbus Park) and patchwork … Read more
In August of 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim final rule requiring that all HIPAA covered entities and their business associates develop notification requirements for a breach of unsecured protected health information (PHI). These new requirements are part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). In … Read more
On a fairly routine basis, I run across SNF Administrators and Directors of Nursing that continue to have issues with hospice patients in their facilities but not from the standpoint of the patient typically; from the standpoint of dealing with the Hospice and the terms of the contract between the Hospice and the SNF. In … Read more