Medicare Patients Win the Right to Appeal Gap in Nursing Home Coverage
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Tag: three day hospital admission
The Jan. 25 ruling, which came in response to a 2011 class-action lawsuit eventually joined by 14 beneficiaries against the Department of Health and Human Services, will guarantee pFederal Judge Rules Medicare Patients Can Challenge ‘Observation Care’ Status
By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | March 30, 2020| This story also appeared in 
Hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries who have been denied coverage for nursing home stays because their time in the hospital was changed from “inpati
ent” to “observation care” can now appeal to Medicare for reimbursement, a federal judge in Hartford, Connecticut, ruled last week.
If the government does not challenge the decision and patients win their appeals, Medicare could pay them millions of dollars for staggeringly high nursing home bills….
“If I had gone home, I would have died,” said Ervin Kanefsky, 94, a plaintiff [in a class action lawsuit against Medicare] from suburban Philadelphia. He was admitted to the hospital as an inpatient after fracturing his shoulder in a fall. When he was about to leave after five days to recuperate at a nursing home, a hospital official told him his status had changed to observation. With one arm in a sling, stitches in the other and unable to hold onto his walker, he learned Medicare wouldn’t pay for the nursing home. [Continued at Kaiser Health News or The Philadelphia Inquirer.]
…Class-Action Lawsuit Seeks To Let Medicare Patients Appeal Gap in Nursing Home Coverage
By Susan Jaffe | Kaiser Health News | August 12, 2019 | This KHN story also ran on 
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Medicare paid for Betty Gordon’s knee replacement surgery in March, but the 72-year-old former high school teacher needed a nursing home stay and care at home to recover.
Yet Medicare wouldn’t pay for that. So Gordon is stuck with a $7,000 bill she can’t afford — and, as if that were not bad enough, she can’t appeal.
The reasons Medicare won’t pay have frustrated the Rhode Island woman and many others trapped in the maze of regulations surrounding something called “observation care.”
Patients, like Gordon, receive observation care in the hospital when their doctors think they are too sick to go home but not sick enough to be admitted. They stay overnight or longer, usually in regular hospital rooms, getting some of the same services and treatment (often for the same problems) as an admitted patient….
(Photo courtesy of Betty Gordon)
But observation care is considered an outpatient service under Medicare rules, like a doctor’s appointment or a lab test. Observation patients may have to pay a larger share of the hospital bill than if they were officially admitted to the hospital.Medicare’s nursing home benefit is available only to those admitted to the hospital for three consecutive days. Gordon spent three days in the hospital after her surgery, but because she was getting observation care, that time didn’t count.
There’s another twist: Patients might want to file an appeal, as they can with many other Medicare decisions. But that is not allowed if the dispute involves observation care.
Monday, a trial begins in federal court in Hartford, Conn., where patients who were denied Medicare’s nursing home benefit are hoping to force the government to eliminate that exception. A victory would clear the way for appeals from hundreds of thousands of people. [Continued at Kaiser Health News, Next Avenue or Salon]
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