Tapas Thursday: Small Health Policy News Bites

I like tapas from time to time, especially for a happy hour gathering. Thursday seems to always be a good day to have little bites of something prior to a big weekend; even better if Friday is a short day or a day off into the weekend. In a post earlier this week I mentioned … Read more

Observation Stay Relief via Congress?

An issue that continues to confound the hospital and SNF industry is the growing use and thus, referral and coverage (Medicare) ramifications of observation stays.  Fundamentally, and observation stay by current definition is a non-inpatient stay – an extended residence in an outpatient status.  Truly, this a bifurcated problem or issue; hospitals wishing to avoid … Read more

Catching Up Part I: Politics, Observation Stays, and Medicaid

Off the golf course (reluctantly) and back to work.  Last week was full of catching up and revisiting issues and reports.  As promised before I went temporarily AWOL, here’s Part I of at least two parts (maybe three) of issues that I am following. Politics and the First Tuesday in November: The conventions are done and … Read more

Hospital Observation Stays Impacting Medicare SNF Admissions

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