Monthly Archives: July 2019
Warning: Auditors Will Target SNF Patient Conditions, Not Services and Time Rendered
Oct. 1, 2019 marks the beginning of a new era of billing for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs).
Say goodbye to RUG-IV, and hello to the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM).
This is a daunting task, not for the faint of heart. Under PDPM, reimbursement for Medicare Part A patients in SNFs will be driven by patient condition, rather than by therapy minutes provided. Documentation is crucial to a successful Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) audit.
In the past, therapy documentation has been the focus of RAC audits. Now, nursing documentation is front and center. Do not try to maximize case mix index (CMI). But remember, certain documentation can easily lead to higher reimbursement. For example, if you document when a patient is morbidly obese, suffering from diabetes, and taking intravenous medication, this can lead to three times the reimbursement over the first three days. This article will explore the intricacies of RAC audits and how to maximize reimbursement while successfully maneuvering through the process.
Here is the million-dollar question: how will PDPM affect your business?
The answer is four-fold, for the purposes of this article, although this list is not exhaustive.
- Managing care: Unlike RUG-IV, which incentivizes ultra-high volumes of therapy to capture maximum payment, PDPM requires you to carefully manage how you deliver services in order to provide the right level of care for each patient. This begs the question of whether you’re getting paid to over-deliver services (or practice “defensive medicine”), or you’re getting audits and recoupments for under-delivering due to poor patient outcomes. For this reason, it can seem like you are getting pulled in two directions.
- Financial: PDPM is designed to be budget-neutral. Your reimbursements will decrease. SNFs will be able to offset the loss in therapy reimbursement with higher reimbursement for services already being provided.
- Staffing: There is less demand for therapists in a SNF setting. But you will be able to retain the best therapy sources.
- Billing: Under PDPM, you will bill using the Health Insurance Prospective Payment System (HIPPS) code that is generated from assessments with ARD. You will still be using a five-digit code, as you did with RUG-IV. But the characters signify different things. For example, under RUG-IV, the first three characters represented the patient’s RUG classification, and the last two were an assessment indicator. With PDPM, the first character represents the patient’s physical therapy (PT) and occupational therapy (OT) component. The second is the patient’s speech language therapy (SLP) component. The third is the nursing component classification. The fourth is the NTA component classification, while the fifth is an AI code.
The upshot to this is that different clinical categories can result in significant reimbursement differences. For example, consider the major joint replacement or spinal surgery clinical category. That clinical category is a major medical service, which can translate to a $42-a-day increase in reimbursement. For a 20-day stay, that clinical category would increase reimbursement by $840. You want to pick up on this type of surgery.
I received a question after a recent program segment asking whether swing beds will be affected by PDPM. In most hospitals, the answer is yes. The exception is critical access hospitals (CAHs), which will remain cost-based for their swing beds.
Final Rule: “Accordingly, all non-CAH swing-bed rural hospitals have now come under the SNF PPS. Therefore, all rates and wage indexes outlined in earlier sections of this final rule for the SNF PPS also apply to all non-CAH swing- bed rural hospitals.”
The latest changes in the MDS for swing-bed rural hospitals appear on the SNF PPS website at: http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-Fee-for-Service-Payment/SNFPPS/index.html
Programming Note:
Listen to healthcare attorney Knicole Emanuel every Monday on Monitor Monday, 10-10:30 a.m. EST.
What “Medicare for All” Looks Like for All Health Care Providers, Even If You Refuse Medicare Now
“Medicare for All” is the talk of the town. People are either strong proponents or avid naysayers. Most of the articles that I have seen that have discussed Medicare for All writes about it as if it is a medical diagnosis and “cure-all” for the health care disease debilitating our country. Others articles discuss the amount Medicare for All will cost the taxpayers.
I want to look at Medicare for All from a different perspective. I want to discuss Medicare for All from the health care providers’ perspectives – those who already accept Medicare and those who, currently, do not accept Medicare, but may be forced to accept Medicare under the proposed Medicare for All and the legality or illegality of it.
I want to explore the implementation of Medicare for All by using my personal dentist as an example. When I went to my dentist, Dr. L, today, who doesn’t accept Medicare or Medicaid, he was surprised to hear from the patient (me) in whom he was inserting a crown (after placing a long needle in my mouth to numb my mouth, causing great distress and pain) that he may be forced to accept Medicare in the near future. “I made the decision a long time ago to not accept Medicare or Medicaid,” he said. “Plus, Medicare doesn’t even cover dental services, does it?”
While Medicare doesn’t cover most dental care, dental procedures, or supplies, like cleanings, fillings, tooth extractions, dentures, dental plates, or other dental devices, Medicare Part A (Hospital Insurance) will pay for certain dental services that you get when you’re in a hospital. Part A can pay for inpatient hospital care if you need to have emergency or complicated dental procedures, even though the dental care isn’t covered. However, some Medicare Advantage Plans (Part C) offer extra benefits that original Medicare doesn’t cover – like vision, hearing, or dental. Theoretically, Medicare for All will cover dental services since Part C covers dental, although, there is a question as to how exactly Medicare for All will/would work. Who knows whether dental services would be included in Medicare for All – this is just an example. Insert any type of medical service in lieu of dental, if you wish.
Dr. L had made the decision not accept Medicaid or Medicare. He only accepts private pay or cash pay. If Medicare for All is implemented, Dr. L’s decision to not accept Medicare will no longer be his decision; it would be the government’s decision. The rates that Dr. L charges now and receives for reimbursements now could be slashed in half without Dr. L’s consent or business plan.
In a 2019 RAND study, researchers examined payment and claims data from 2015 to 2017 representing $13 billion in healthcare spending across 25 states at about 1,600 hospitals. The study showed that private insurers pay 235% of Medicare in 2015 to 241% of Medicare in 2017. The statistics differ state to state. In some states private pay reimbursed as low as 150% of Medicare, while in others private pay reimbursed up to 400% of Medicare.
To show how many providers are adverse to accepting Medicare: In 2000, nearly 80% of health care providers were taking new Medicare patients. By 2012, that number dropped to less than 60%. Currently, less than 40% of the health-care system are government run and nearly 33% of doctors won’t see new Medicaid patients. Medicare patients frequently have difficulty finding a new primary-care doctor.
My question is –
Is it legal for the government to force health care providers to accept Medicare rates by issuing a Medicare for All system?
An analogy would be that the government forced all attorneys to charge under $100/hour, or all airplane flights to be $100, or all restaurants to charge a flat fee that is determined by the government. Is this what our country has transformed into? A country in which the government determines the prices of services and products?
Let me be clear and and rebut what some readers will automatically think. This is not simply an anti-Medicare for All blog. Shoot, I’d love to get health care services for free. Instead, I am reviewing Medicare for All from a legal and constitutional perspective to discuss whether government implemented reimbursement rates will/would be legal. Or would government implemented reimbursement rates violate due process, the right to contract, the right to pursue a career, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and/or our country’s history of capitalism.
The consequences of accepting Medicare can be monumental. Going back to Dr. L, due to the massive decrease of reimbursement rates under Medicare, he may be forced to downsize his staff, stop investing in high tech devices to advance the practice of dentistry, take less of a salary, and, perhaps, work more to offset the reimbursement rate reduction.
Not to mention the immense regulatory oversight, including audits, documentation productions, possible suspensions of Medicare contracts or accusations of credible allegations of fraud that comes hand in hand with accepting Medicare.
I don’t think there is one particular law that would allow or prohibit Medicare for All requiring health care providers to accept Medicare reimbursements, even against their will. Although I do think there is potential for a class action lawsuit on behalf of health care providers who have decided to not accept Medicare if they are forced to accept Medicare in the future.
I do not believe that Medicare for All will ever be implemented. Just think of a world in which there is no need for private insurance companies…a utopia, right? But the private health care insurance companies have enough money and enough sway to keep Medicare for All at bay. Hospitals and the Hospital Association will also have some input regardless the implementation of Medicare for All. Most hospitals claim that, under Medicare for All, they would close.
Regardless the conversation is here and will, most likely, be a highly contested issue in our next election.
