If you wait to only react to the process, you will have to bite off more than you can chew when the deadlines come.
Providers must see clearly before they CHOW down
By
Richard Cheng
Sep 29, 2014
When a skilled nursing facility changes ownership, the change is known in healthcare vernacular as a change of ownership or “CHOW.” Because this could wind up endangering a Medicare provider...
CMS should be careful in what it asks for
By
Brendan Williams
Dec 23, 2022
Those in the nursing home sector are worried a potential staffing mandate imposed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could be the ruination of a reeling sector. However, there is an argument...
CMS did more than ‘just’ cut Medicare pay by 11.1%
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
Aug 19, 2011
Have you started your COT trending analysis? On Aug. 8, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the final ruling and commentary for the new implementation of the MDS changes set to take effect...
Eliminating the “Black Hole”: Transitions of care
By
Donald Quinn, M.D.
Aug 12, 2013
In the early days of hospitalist medicine, we described the period between hospital discharge and follow-up at the skilled nursing facility, long-term care acute care hospital or a primary care physician...
Getting proactive on hospital readmissions
By
Ben Adkins
Oct 21, 2011
Long-term care providers have plenty at stake when it comes to the issue of hospital readmissions, and working to reduce them. As debt ceiling talks and federal budget woes raise the specter of additional...
The G-codes are here for payment claims — ready or not
By
Shelly Mesure, MS, OTR/L
May 23, 2013
Effective July 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will begin rejecting claims received for Medicare Part B patients that do not include the new requirement of G-coding. That really means providers...
A tisket, a tasket … No LPNs in the RN basket
By
Steven Littlehale
Jul 20, 2015
Reporting direct care hours is nothing new, but the Affordable Care Act takes it to the next level with mandatory quarterly electronic submission of staffing and census data. This focus on staffing ratios...
Practical advice on reducing antipsychotics
By
Jerome Wilborn
May 08, 2015
Two CMS tags —F-Tag 329, which addresses unnecessarily using antipsychotic drugs, and F-Tag 309, which addresses taking steps to reduce antipsychotic drug use — are used by nursing home surveyors to...
A good first step but more to do with MDS 3.0
By
Leah Klusch, RN, BSN, FACHCA
Mar 07, 2012
It was a long first day, but there was tremendous value and everyone who is here has learned what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ positions are with the April updates and some of the...