Q: A patient in the emergency room (ER) recently complained that she could hear the doctor and nurses discussing details of care of the patient in the bed next to hers. I understand that we should avoid disclosures, but the ER is often noisy and chaotic. How should we handle this situation?
This week’s Medicare updates include notification of a new interest rate for Medicare Overpayments and Underpayments, revisions to the Medicare Claims Processing Manual regarding payment of services furnished by qualified nonphysician anesthetists, a fact sheet for hospitals on the 2018 Medicare EHR Incentive Program payment adjustment, and more!
Physician specialist payments could vary as much as 29% by 2020 under the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), according to the October 5 press release by Avalere. This is due to CMS’s proposal to include Medicare payments for Part B drugs in the calculation of the MIPS payment adjustment.
Patient care continues to move from the inpatient setting to outpatient. With this change, the challenge of securing comprehensive documentation that articulates the services rendered and the patient care provided now needs to extend across the care continuum.