Being a successful Home Health Agency (HHA) today means not only achieving patient satisfaction but also juggling all the reports used to calculate your agency’s Quality of Patient Care Star Rating. These ratings are published on the home health care (HHC) website and used by More..
Thanks to the launch of the new Hospice Compare website, your agency’s quality scores are on display for the whole world to see. Plus, you have a variety of new quality reporting items to contend with. From the Hospice Item Set (HIS) to the Hospice More..
Billing Medicare and other payers for endoscopy services is pretty different from billing for other types of procedures. And if you’re like most coders/billers, you’re probably making some common mistakes that can cost you lost time and valuable reimbursement dollars. When billing for endoscopy services, More..
Like most skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), you and your staff are likely neck-deep in preparations for the new survey requirements of participation (RoPs). SNFs are in the midst of Phase 2 implementation, which includes a new survey process, as well as updated Interpretive Guidance (IG), More..
Telemedicine, and telehealth in general, has been growing tremendously in recent years, thanks in large part to advances in technology and patient demand. A 2014 HIS technology report projected that the number of telehealth patients by 2018 would have grown from 250,000 in 2013 to More..
Coding for physician inpatient services, especially critical care, is deceptively straightforward. The reality is that the details of each code requirement can complicate things to the point of complete confusion. Despite the challenges, there are specific strategies you can use to correctly identify when critical More..
Medical professionals working in emergency departments (ED) constantly have to make split second decisions in a stressful, crowded, and often understaffed environment. Failure to comply with federal regulations can mean severe penalties not only for the hospital itself, but also for on-duty and on-call staff. More..
The rise of electronic health records (EHR) has created significant challenges for providers that go beyond typical data storage and breach concerns. After all, providing patient care often requires sharing patient information—the privacy of which the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) More..
Statistics on foodborne diseases are startling, to say the least: Each year, such illnesses are responsible for the hospitalization of approximately 128,000 people, as well as 3,000 deaths and 48 million illnesses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As shocking as More..
Hospitals may aim for a smooth and coordinate patient discharge process, but they’re not reaching that goal often enough according to Medicare. This year, under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), Medicare is penalizing around more than 2,500 hospitals for readmissions considered unnecessary, according to More..