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The 2010 proposed rule for the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) includes only minimal changes to the MS-DRG system from a coding and reporting standpoint but is likely to have a significant impact on hospital reimbursement, according to Deborah Hale, CCS, president of Administrative Consultant Services LLC, a health care consulting firm based in Shawnee, OK.
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While hospital discharge planners make certain each patient's discharge and transition in care are handled with quality of care and safety in mind, it's the job of hospital operations chiefs to make certain the entire process runs smoothly and efficiently.
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Case managers can play a vital role in the event of a pandemic by educating their patients on how to stay healthy and avoid exposure to disease.
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Don't get a false sense of security if the Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) process seems easy at first, warns Brian Flood, CHC, CIG, Esq., advisory managing director for KPMG LLP's health care practice in Austin, TX.
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Once the decision was made in July 2007 to create a senior emergency center at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD, Bonnie Mahon, RN, BSN, MSN, senior director of medical, surgical, and senior services, put together a team that included two ED physicians, the chief nurse, the nurse manager, and a director of case management.
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The senior emergency center at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, MD, may be a rarity, but based on the responses of patients and staff not to mention our increasingly aging population perhaps more EDs should consider creating a separate unit for older patients.
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While it's true that many hospitals and EDs have instituted policies that seek to encourage nonurgent patients to find other medical "homes," the policy recently adopted at the University of Chicago Medical Center goes a bit farther than most, says Sandra Schneider, MD, vice president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
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By the time the majority of patients having elective surgery are admitted to Geisinger Health System, the care managers who will coordinate their care after surgery already have the information they need to create a discharge plan.
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One patient who was attending a preoperative class for joint replacement patients at Geisinger Health System joked that he was being discharged before he ever got to the hospital, recalls Trisha Whispell, BSN, MSW, ACS, social work care manager, who, with her RN care manager partner, presents a pre-admission class on joint replacement and manages care for patients after surgery.
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Every admission to any of the four facilities in the Christus Santa Rosa health system goes through a central patient intake center where RN case managers screen for medical necessity and appropriateness of care and determine patient status.