CMS issued a waiver on March 13 designed to help hospitals and other healthcare facilities better respond to the surge in demand placed on them by the COVID-19 pandemic. The waiver allows CMS to bypass traditional rules, including Conditions of Participation when necessary, and aims to help organizations move patients through levels of care more quickly to free up needed hospital beds for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
As organizations respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number are turning to telemedicine to safely meet patient demand. “The current crisis is expanding people’s willingness to shift the paradigm both on the provider and patient side,” says Diane Iverson, RN, BSN, BS, ACM, CCM, a Baltimore-area case manager. “Systems are gearing up to expand services rapidly.”
Are you having trouble communicating with your patients’ primary care physicians? It’s a problem in the U.S., according to a 2019 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey published by Health Affairs.
It’s Monday morning and case manager Kim is sitting in her office. She starts her day by printing her patient care unit census. She reads through each of the patient names on the census when one catches her attention.
The countdown has started. On April 1, hospitals must begin using the three revised CMS beneficiary notices. The old notices can be used through March 31, but not after that date.
Julie, a psychiatric case manager, is concerned about her patient Henry, who is 32 years old with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder that his physician is managing with a daily dose of Seroquel®.
