Professional standards and patient empathy ease burden of payment collection
Delivering quality healthcare doesn’t end when a patient leaves the postanesthesia care unit. It continues until the final installment of the bill is paid. It continues even when the payment is overdue, missing, or refused. To stay in business, an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) must collect the fees it has…
Editorial
More than 2,600 hospitals in fiscal year 2015 are facing Medicare readmission penalties, to the tune of an estimated $428 million, a recent Kaiser Health News report indicates. Among these, 39 hospitals—including some specialty surgical hospitals, small community hospitals, and a major teaching facility—will lose the maximum 3% of their…
Potential rewards justify efforts to create bundled payment programs
Physician alignment is a key element of current hospital strategy. Last month, we looked at how hospital ORs can use co-management agreements to build strong collaboration with surgeons. Payment reform has created an even more sophisticated option—participation in a bundled payment program. Bundled payment initiatives are more complex than most…
Prepare now for more stringent joint replacement documentation requirements
Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) in several states recently ratcheted up their documentation requirements for joint replacement surgery and other orthopedic procedures. For hospital ORs, these changes represent the tip of an iceberg that calls for careful navigation. Enhanced medical necessity documentation requirements were launched in Florida in 2011. The state’s…
Medicare reimbursement, allowable procedures at forefront of ASC challenges
Leaders of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) can expect to continue facing challenges related to reimbursement even as they try to increase the kinds of procedures that can be performed in their facilities, say experts with the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA). Other key factors that will determine their future success…
CMS issues proposed hospital inpatient payment rule
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on April 30 issued its proposed rule that would update FY 2015 Medicare payment polices and rates for inpatient stays at general acute care and long-term care hospitals. The proposed rule will increase the payment rate to general acute care hospitals by…
Anticipate & educate to navigate murky healthcare reform waters
Anxiety over changes in healthcare delivery and payment systems has permeated hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Administrators are concerned about how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and other initiatives will hit the organization’s bottom line. Increasingly, perioperative services leaders are being drawn into discussions in these areas. “The OR…
Planning for postoperative care: A key strategy for reducing readmissions
With the expansion of Medicare readmission penalties to elective total-knee and total-hip arthroplasty patients in 2014 comes an increasing demand for OR leaders to ensure better postdischarge care. To avoid readmissions, OR management will have to be more proactive about reducing length of stay and complications and providing for care…
ACA will bring more patients to ASCs--but will profits follow?
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is affecting every part of the healthcare system, including ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Whether it will help or hinder ASCs, however, will depend on how adept they are at managing changes in the way they are paid and how they interact with…
Comprehensive dashboards paint a fuller picture of OR performance
OR Business Performance is a series intended to help OR managers and directors improve the success of their business. Data-rich dashboards are an effective way to communicate with surgeons and align them with OR goals, but many reporting strategies have not kept pace with changes in the surgery market.…
Free Daily News
- Hospital addresses barriers to patient rest, recovery
- Study: Psilocybin therapy reduces depression in frontline clinicians
- Exclusive articles preview OR Business Management Conference sessions
- Study: Surgeries improve survival in young BRCA-positive breast cancer patients
- Study: Advanced recovery room care could reduce long-term postoperative mortality
- FDA designates Class 1 recalls for balloon catheters, radiographic markers
- Orthopedic surgery in 2025: Embracing innovation, preserving autonomy
- Medtronic, Zimmer Biomet challenge Intuitive Surgical’s robotic surgery dominance
- Anthem’s anesthesia time limit policy, reversal sparks new legislation
- Simple procedure or ‘surgery’? Questionable medical billing practices cause confusion