Category: HHS

Fighting ‘Observation’ Status

By Susan Jaffe   |   January 10, 2014, 2:41 pm  

Every year, thousands of Medicare patients who spend time in the hospital for observation but are not officially admitted find they are not eligible for nursing home coverage after discharge. 

…Medicare officials have urged hospital patients to find out if they’ve been admitted. But suppose the answer is no. Then what do you do?

Medicare doesn’t require hospitals to tell patients if they are merely being observed, which is supposed to last no more than 48 hours to help the doctor decide if someone is sick enough to be admitted. (Starting on Jan. 19, however, New York State will require hospitals to provide oral and written notification to patients within 24 hours of putting them on observation status. Penalties range as much as $5,000 per violation.)  [Continued in The New York Times.]…

Doctors skittish about health technology despite promise of big federal bucks

By Susan Jaffe  | Center for Public Integrity  |  July 7, 2011

The goal is to bring the last outposts of the nation’s health care system into the computer age, linking medical providers so that they can coordinate and improve patient care and — in the process—reduce unnecessary health care spending. But convincing everyone to use electronic health records has not been easy. …Neither  reward nor punishment has 

persuaded some small practice doctors — a troubling omen for the Obama administration, which believes that conversion of paper records to electronic form is a crucial step toward health care reform. [Continued]

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