The good news is that the rate of 30-day readmissions is going down in hospitals across the nation, according to a CMS report. The bad news is that fines are going up. CMS also added some new conditions to its readmission prevention list for 2015.
Considering the daily challenges homeless individuals face, their high readmission rate should be unsurprising. Properly managing one's health is difficult for those worried about where they will sleep or find their next meal.
Each year the Office of Inspector General (OIG) outlines its enforcement priorities. Its 2015 Work Plan includes items case managers should have on their radar.
After physicians treat them in the emergency department (ED), millions of patients each year head home to recover, but not all of them do so successfully. Many wind up needing to head right back to the hospital because something goes wrong and the discharge fails. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) recently partnered with the Johns Hopkins University Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality to study this issue.
Case managers rejoice. CMS recently sounded what is being called the death knell of the 2-midnight rule certification in a final rule published in the November 10, 2014, Federal Register.
Do observation patients belong in their own unit? The answer is debated at many organizations. Some say establishing a separate unit brings numerous advantages, from improved ED throughput to shorter lengths of stay. Others say some facilities may not need one.
