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The month of June saw many hospice managers scrambling to develop data collection processes and test software to make sure that claims filed after the July 1, 2008, implementation date for the new Medicare hospice billing rule would be paid.
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The types of quality improvement projects that will be required by early February 2009 by the Hospice Conditions of Participation (COPs) for Medicare will be challenging for some hospice organizations, but they will not be impossible if each hospice chooses the right projects, says Malene S. Davis, MSN, MBA, CHPN, president and CEO of Capital Hospice in Falls Church, VA, and president of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).
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For the first time since the Medicare Conditions of Participation (COPs) were created for hospice in 1983, significant revisions that affect the way hospice care is delivered have been developed. The revisions focus on patient rights, improvement in outcomes, and strengthened quality improvement programs.
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Researchers from Harvard Medical School examined antibiotic use in a group of elderly, demented patients residing in 21 nursing homes in the Boston area, focusing on the weeks prior to death.
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While ultrasound is generally accepted as the preferred imaging modality for the diagnosis of appendicitis in pediatric patients, investigators from the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, suggest that it should also be the initial imaging examination for most adult patients with suspected acute appendicitis.
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Performing imaging procedures on the very young often requires sedation, but when the child wakes up before the procedure is complete, it is not only a frightening experience for the patient and the parents, but it also usually means the procedure must be rescheduled.
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There still is work to be done, but researchers have concluded an initial clinical trial involving a new stereoscopic digital mammography system that eventually could help radiologists identify more breast cancers with fewer false-positive results.
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CT has advanced rapidly in recent years, in some cases empowering clinicians to gather huge amounts of data painlessly rather than through invasive procedures. However, there is a tradeoff for the ever-increasing resolution power of the newer scanners: They are picking up a growing number of incidental findings that clinicians must then determine whether to pursue.
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