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A July report from the American Hospital Association (AHA) regarding the shift of care to nonhospital settings1 brought strong reaction from FASA, which said the association is playing "the blame game."
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Under a proposed regulation, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would require hospital outpatient department (HOPD) payment rate updates to be tied to inpatient quality measures provided by the hospital, beginning in 2007. Under the proposal, hospitals that don't submit the required quality data would see their HOPD rate updates reduced 2 percentage points.
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In a proposed regulation, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is adding 14 procedures to the approved list for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) in 2007 (see list) and plans to expand the list further in 2008.
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In a first step toward a new ambulatory surgery center (ASC) payment system, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a proposed rule that would pay ASCs 62% of the hospital outpatient department (HOPD) rate, beginning Jan. 1, 2008, with a two-year transition period.
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Question: Our surgery center was bought by a chain surgery center at the end of last year. We received a bonus every quarter for the past 12 years by the surgeons who owned it before they sold it. Ever since XXX Company bought us, we have not received any type of bonus. They tell us we probably will not receive a bonus that it is not in their budget!
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In an ambulatory surgery center that was busy recently handling several patients, two patients received two doses of fentanyl instead of one dose each of fentanyl and midazolam, according to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in Huntingdon Valley, PA.
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Outpatient surgery managers, take note: A Florida ambulatory surgery center (ASC) was banned from admitting new patients for 18 days following a determination by the state that the administrator/risk manager failed to prevent a male staff member from sexually abusing a patient after complaints from other staff members.
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The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) are combining the recommended practice on flash sterilization with other standards into a single document on steam sterilization.
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The California Hospital Association has sued Blue Cross of California to stop a new payment policy that decreases reimbursement for endoscopic procedures that are performed in hospital outpatient departments and boosts payment when the procedures are performed in physician offices and freestanding surgery centers.
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In a first-of-its-kind court case, a jury held that a Louisiana hospital and two physicians intentionally misrepresented a former anesthesiologist's qualifications to a hospital in Washington state where he later was said to have botched a tubal ligation that left a 31-year-old woman with severe brain damage.
