Hospitals have been undergoing more and more restrictions on re-admissions and are now facing financial penalties in some situations. Unfortunately, this has also resulted in more patients not being classified...
Medicare reviewers often stop short
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Jul 23, 2012
If a patient can achieve his or her highest level of independence, as a rehab clinician, I say let’s go for it. To Medicare reviewers, too often they say stop at the prior level of function. So I...
Big challenges ahead for therapy
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Jun 12, 2012
A few years ago, my consulting company had the opportunity to work with a facility to implement a bariatric unit within a skilled nursing facility. This would seem an easy task, but the facility ended...
Are you setting yourself up for success?
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Mar 26, 2012
Are you properly capturing set-up time? What on Earth am I talking about? I’m talking about utilizing the regulation as outlined in the Resident Assessment Instrument, version MDS 3.0.
Point-of-service: Friend or foe?
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Feb 22, 2012
As a manager, I used to love to promote point-of-service, or POS. As a therapist, I used to despise POS. How could I have such a love-hate relationship with POS?
Does your therapy department have resolve?
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Jan 16, 2012
It’s that time of year again, time to settle down and get refocused on our goals and … New Year’s resolutions that might have already been broken! Have you kept your resolutions? Has...
Have we lost our connection to what’s important?
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Aug 15, 2014
We sometimes use high-minded phrases to describe our work and our hopes for our patients. But have we lost our connection to important words? Do they still hold meaning they once did, and if so, how strongly?
Pay for performance, medical necessity and Jimmo
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Jun 04, 2014
Why would anyone mention value-based reimbursement, medical necessity and the Jimmo lawsuit in the same sentence? I feel they are all related, but it will be difficult to find the perfect balancing act...
Palliative possibilities: Therein lies the rub
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Apr 22, 2014
When a patient is referred to therapy, and they are receiving hospice care, then therapy needs to seek permission from the hospice company to provide any treatment. Hospice is required to reimburse the...
5 rules of the rehab screen
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Feb 25, 2014
What is the purpose of a rehabilitation screen? Very simply, we attempt to identify long-term residents’ needs and possible rehab potential. Somehow, we don’t really have an industry standard...