Data, data, data – it is everywhere, but what do we do with it? Business Intelligence (BI) technology has made significant advances over the last few years, making it much easier and more practical to implement a BI platform in hospitals of all sizes. The value of implementing a BI platform creates significant value that is not available from the EHR platform.
The 2022 Physician Fee Schedules has expanded the opportunities for Principal Care Management. There have been increases in the reimbursements and additional time codes added for this service. Does the incorporation of Principal Care Management into your care coordination program allow you to enroll additional patients?
Risk assessment is a key component of recent compliance program guidance from the OIG and DOJ. Using periodic risk assessment to develop work, audit, and education plans will help you to prioritize your compliance program activity.
Workplace violence in hospitals is a growing and serious problem. Healthcare workers have a much higher exposure rate than other industries to workplace violence that often results in injuries.
The webinar will provide an overview of the regulatory standards for Rural Health Clinics Appendix G, which were last updated in February of 2020.
Most Hospitals with a Swing Bed program are interested in increasing volume. So why is it so hard? Is it the competition? Internal systems? Lack of support by providers or staff? Lack of resources?
Surveyors are on the road again and conducting onsite surveys. Infection Control, of course, remains key.
The Swing Bed regulatory requirements do not have interpretative guidelines – and only refer to Appendix PP which are the standards for Long Term Care.
Although swing beds have been around for a long time, there continues to be confusion about how to meet swing bed regulatory requirements.
CMS and Joint Commission are expanding their accreditation life safety surveys to include hospital clinics and hospital-owned physician offices. In the past, nurse surveyors and sometimes physicians would visit those areas, but focused on infection control and patient care, with only a few minor recommendations related to the building.
The keys to a successful quality program are collecting, analyzing, and reporting data. The key questions to ask are: Is all the data being collected necessary? Are sample sizes appropriate? Most importantly, is the data making a difference in improving outcomes?
If we think about service lines, surgical services, cardiac services, trauma services, cancer services or pediatric services, may come to mind. But why not swing bed? For most rural hospitals, swing bed services provide a significant benefit to the community by providing skilled care close to home, and a significant revenue source for the hospital.
Learn to identify safety issues from a former Joint Commission Life Safety Surveyor through pictures from surveys performed over the last 30 years. These pictures are from small and large medical facilities around the country and demonstrate the need to continually improve your hospital’s safety.
Compliance with Swing Bed regulatory requirements continues to be a challenge for most organizations. The reasons are varied but often it has to do with staff difficulty in differentiating between an acute level of care and a skilled level of care. Other challenges may include the multi-disciplinary assessment, plan of care, and discharge requirements.
The CMS deadline for Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) to implement a QAPI program is March 30, 2021. Even though CMS has not published the standards in the Conditions of Participation (CoPs), the deadline is fast approaching.
Keeping your swing bed program “survey ready” is every hospital’s goal. But, it can be difficult, especially with the recent changes in swing bed regulations that were released by CMS in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Swing bed regulatory requirements continue to be confusing or difficult to implement for many hospitals. This occurs in part because the requirements for acute patients are different than those for a swing bed patient, including requirements for admission, assessment, care planning and discharge.
The Social Security Act permits certain small, rural hospitals to enter into a swing bed agreement under which the hospital or critical access hospital (CAH) can use its beds, as needed, to provide either acute or skilled nursing care. Medicare Part A, the hospital insurance program, covers post-hospital extended care services furnished in a swing bed.
Recent reimbursement methodology changes have a focused point of importance but none more than the relationship of active diagnoses, which affects both admission decisions and services provided.
On September 30, 2019, CMS issued major regulatory changes for hospitals and critical access hospitals, the majority of which were effective the end of November. The new regulations include changes to the swing bed regulatory requirements, including elimination of the requirement for an activities assessment by a qualified professional.
We provided a webinar last year that focused on recurring questions about swing bed. So, back by popular demand, an updated edition of “Just the Questions”.
HealthTechS3 has provided numerous swing bed webinars over the last several years. For this webinar we’re going “back to basics.”
The revisions to Swing Bed regulatory requirements in October of 2018 required the implementation of Trauma-Informed care.
The first of our two-part series will focus on ways to improve your swing bed program from both the organization and resident’s perspective.