Even before President Obama’s promise to hire bounty hunters to eliminate waste and fraud from Medicare, Regional Home Health Intermediaries had been stepping up their rate of payment denials. Most often, justifications to withhold payments for already provided nursing or therapy services center around “lack of medical necessity.” In case after case, attorneys and appeals consultants […]
In our previous story, we reprinted a letter from a payment denials and appeals consultant who told a client he would stop representing their appeals until they improved their staff’s clinical documentation skills. At the end of the letter, he offered some examples of what kind of documentation they were giving him when he argued […]
Two nurses have won recognition as emerging leaders in the field of nursing informatics, selected by the Alliance for Nursing Informatics (ANI) to participate in a jointly supported Nursing Informatics Emerging Leaders Program. ANI and its Nursing Informatics Emerging Leaders Program are jointly supported by the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
Patients who received telephone-delivered collaborative care for treatment of depression after coronary artery bypass graft surgery reported greater improvement in measures of quality of life, physical functioning and mood than patients who received usual care, according to a study in the November 18 issue of JAMA. The journal also announced a new series on “Caring for the Aging Patient” that might be interesting for home care and hospice staff. Plus, new proof that coffee and tea seem to prevent type II diabetes.
