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The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has announced changes to the provider self-disclosure protocol (SDP), which health care providers use to voluntarily disclose self-discovered evidence of potential fraud, and to its process for resolving those cases.
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An 85% increase in the number of Internet hacker attacks on its health care clients has been reported by SecureWorks, a security-as-a-service provider.
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Faced with an increasing number of patients in observation status, Brandon (FL) Regional Hospital began an observation management process that resulted in a 16% decrease in observation patients and a 27% drop in observation length of stay in just one year.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed significant expansion in hospital quality reporting requirements, including adding 46 new quality measures for which hospitals must submit data over the next two years, and increasing the number of hospital-acquired conditions for which Medicare won't reimburse.
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Gilbert (AZ) Hospital has one of the busiest emergency departments in the area and an average ED waiting time of less than 12 minutes.
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An elderly woman tells ED triage nurses she's had an excruciating, unrelenting headache for the past two days. She has a steady gait.
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If you assume that patients complaining of headache are nontherapeutic medication seekers or chronic complainers, you risk undertriaging these patients, warns Rebekah Child, RN, MSN, CEN, CNIV, an ED nurse at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
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Deciding whether patients should be in observation or inpatient status always has been a challenge for hospitals and now that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has embarked on a nationwide program to audit for overpayment, placing patients in the correct status is more critical than ever.
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Strategies that include developing close relationships with post-acute providers; meetings to explore options for extended-stay patients; and collaboration between nurse practitioners, hospitalists, and the interdisciplinary care team have helped Catawba Valley Medical Center in Hickory, NC, reduce the number of patients who stay more than 15 days.
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