Vascular surgery-related violations of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

OBJECTIVE: The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) is a federal law established in 1986 to ensure that patients who present to an emergency department receive medical care regardless of means. Violations are reported to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and can result in significant financial penalties. Our objective was to assess all available EMTALA violations for vascular-related issues. METHODS: EMTALA violations in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services publicly available hospital violations database from 2011 to 2018 were evaluated for vascular-related issues. Details recorded were case type, hospital type, hospital region, reasons for violation, disposition, and mortality. RESULTS: There were 7001 patients identified with any EMTALA violation and 98 (1.4%) were deemed vascular related. The majority (82.7%) of EMTALA violations occurred at urban/suburban hospitals. Based on the Association of American Medical Colleges United States region, vascular-related EMTALA violations occurred in the Northeast (7.1%), Southern (56.1%), Central (18.4%), and Western (18.4%) United States. Case types included cerebrovascular (28.6%), aortic related (22.4%; which consisted of ruptured aortic aneurysms [8.2%], aortic dissection [11.2%], and other aortic [3.1%]), vascular trauma (15.3%), venous-thromboembolic (15.3%), peripheral arterial disease (9.2%), dialysis access (5.1%), bowel ischemia (3.1%), and other (1%) cases. Patients were transferred to another facility in 41.8% of cases. The most common reasons for violation were specialty refusal or unavailability (30.6%), inappropriate documentation (29.6%), misdiagnosis (18.4%), poor communication (17.3%), inappropriate triage (13.3%), failure to obtain diagnostic laboratory tests or imaging (12.2%), and ancillary or nursing staff issues (7.1%). The overall mortality was 19.4% and 31.6% died during the index emergency department visit. Vascular conditions associated with death were venous thromboembolism (31.6%), ruptured aortic aneurysm (21.1%), aortic dissection (21.1%), other aortic causes (10.5%), vascular trauma (10.5%), and bowel ischemia (5.3%). CONCLUSIONS: Although the frequency of vascular-related EMTALA violations was low, improvements in communication, awareness of vascular disease among staff, specialty staffing, and the development of referral networks and processes are needed to ensure that patients receive adequate care and that institutions are not placed at undue risk.

Three ways COVID-19 makes the Oncology Care First Model more attractive.

COVID-19 has delayed the transition to Oncology Care First, but the forthcoming model could help.

Smoke-Free Policies and 30-Day Readmission Rates for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

INTRODUCTION: Previous evidence has shown that smoke-free policies reduce hospital admissions due to respiratory causes, but the impact on 30-day readmission has not been determined. As 25 states in the U.S. have not adopted comprehensive smoke-free legislation, it is likely that patients return to an environment that increases risk of a secondary event. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of smoke-free policies on 30-day readmission rates for adults aged ≥65 years following hospitalization for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the U.S. METHODS: Data from the U.S. Tobacco Control Laws Database, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, American Hospital Association, Area Health Resource File, and U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey were merged at the county level for years 2013-2016 and analyzed in 2018. Hierarchical Poisson regression models were utilized to calculate incidence rate ratios to determine the impact of full, partial, and no smoke-free policies on 30-day readmission rates after chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospitalization. RESULTS: Multivariable analysis adjusting for both county and hospital characteristics revealed that the presence of full (incidence rate ratio=0.81, 95% CI=0.76, 0.88) and partial (incidence rate ratio=0.87, 95% CI=0.81, 0.92) smoke-free policies were associated with fewer 30-day readmissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-related hospitalizations when compared with counties with no smoke-free policy. CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of smoke-free policies is an effective measure for reducing 30-day readmissions following hospitalization due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, with stronger policies resulting in decreased risk. Efforts to reduce chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-related 30-day readmissions should include the implementation of smoke-free policies.

Death of outrage over talking about dying.

OBJECTIVES: We examined public reaction to the proposed Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services rule reimbursing physicians for advanced care planning (ACP) discussions with patients. METHODS: Public comments made on regulations.gov were reviewed for relevance to ACP policy and their perceived position on ACP (ie, positive, negative and neutral). Descriptive statistics were used to quantify the results. RESULTS: A total of 2225 comments were submitted to regulations.gov. On review, 69.0% were categorised as irrelevant; among relevant comments (n=689), 81.1% were positive, 18.6% were negative and 0.002% were neutral. Individuals submitted a greater percentage of the total comments as compared to organisations (63.5% and 36.5%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The US Medicare programme is a tax financed social insurance programme that covers all patients 65 years of age and older, including 8 in 10 decedents annually, and it is the part of the US healthcare system most similar to the rest of world. There has been a trend globally towards recognising the importance of aligning patient preferences with care options, including palliative care to deal with advanced life limiting illness. However, ACP is not widely used in the USA, potentially reducing the use of palliative care. Reimbursing ACP discussions between physicians, patients and their family has the potential to have a large impact on the quality of life of persons near death, which can greatly impact public health and the comfort in dealing with our ultimate demise.

Reframing Medicare Physician Payment Policy for 2019: A Look at Proposed Policy.

On July 12, 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the proposed 2019 Medicare physician fee schedule and quality payment program, combining these 2 rules for the first time. This occurred in a milieu of changing regulations that have been challenging for interventional pain management specialists. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) continuous to be amended by multiple administrative changes. This July 12th rule proposes substantial payment changes for evaluation and management (E&M) services, with documentation requirements, and blending of Level II to V CPT codes for E&M into a single payment. In addition, various changes in the quality payment program with liberalization of some metrics have been published. Recognizing that there are differing impacts based on specialty and practice type, as a whole interventional pain management specialists would likely see favorable reimbursement trends for E&M services as a result of this proposal. Moreover, in comparison with recent CMS final ruling, this proposed rule has relatively limited changes in procedural reimbursement performed in a facility or in-office setting.CMS, in the new rule, has proposed an overhaul of the E&M documentation and coding system ostensibly to reduce the amount of time physicians are required to spend inputting information into patients' records. The new proposed rule blends Level II to V codes for E&M services into a single payment of $93 for office outpatient visits for established patients and $135 for new patient visits. This will also have an effect with blended payments for services provided in hospital outpatients. CMS also has provided additional codes to increase the reimbursement when prolonged services are provided with total reimbursement coming to Level V payments. Interventional pain management-centered care has been identified as a specialty with complexity inherent to E&M associated with these services. Among the procedural payments, there exist significant discrepancies for the services performed in hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), and offices. A particularly egregious example is peripheral neurolytic blocks, which is reimbursed at 1,800% higher in hospital outpatient department (HOPD) settings as compared with procedures done in the office. The majority of hospital based procedures have faced relatively small cuts as compared with office based practice. The only significant change noted is for spinal cord stimulator implant leads when performed in office setting with 19.2% increase. However, epidural codes, which have been initiated with a lower payment, continue to face small reductions for physician portion.This review describes the effects of the proposed policy on interventional pain management reimbursement for E&M services, procedural services by physicians and procedures performed in office settings. KEY WORDS: Physician payment policy, physician fee schedule, Medicare, Merit-Based Incentive Payment System, interventional pain management, regulatory tsunami, Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.

MACRA 2.5: the legislation moves forward.

The Medicare and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 remains the payment policy law of the land. 2017 was the first year in which performance reporting will tangibly impact future physician payments. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) considers 2017 and 2018 transitional years before full implementation in 2019. As such, 2018 increases the reporting requirements over 2017 in the form of a gradual phase-in while introducing several key changes and new elements. Indeed, it is the nature of the transition itself that led to the somewhat unique title of this manuscript, i.e., MACRA 2.5. Stakeholder feedback to the CMS regarding the program has ranged widely from the elimination of core components to expanding reporting to non-government payers. This article explores the potential impact on neurointerventional physicians.

The Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Registry: Driving quality and demonstrating compliance.

OBJECTIVE: To provide an update on the status of provider participation in the US Wound Registry (USWR) and its specialty registry the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Registry (HBOTR), which provide much-needed national benchmarking and quality measurement services for hyperbaric medicine. METHODS: Providers can meet many requirements of the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and simultaneously participate in the HBOTR by transmitting Continuity of Care Documents (CCDs) directly from their certified electronic health record (EHR) or by reporting hyperbaric quality measures, the specifications for which are available free of charge for download from the registry website as electronic clinical quality measures for installation into any certified EHR. Computerized systems parse the structured data transmitted to the USWR. Patients undergoing hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) therapy are allocated to the HBOTR and stored in that specialty registry database. The data can be queried for benchmarking, quality reporting, public policy, or specialized data projects. RESULTS: Since January 2012, 917,758 clinic visits have captured the data of 199,158 patients in the USWR, 3,697 of whom underwent HBO2 therapy. Among 27,404 patients with 62,843 diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) captured, 9,908 DFUs (15.7%) were treated with HBO2 therapy. Between January 2016 and September 2018, the benchmark rate for the 1,000 DFUs treated with HBO2 was 7.3%, with an average of 28 treatments per patient. There are 2,100 providers who report data to the USWR by transmitting CCDs from their EHR and 688 who submit quality measure data, 300 (43.6%) of whom transmit HBO2 quality data.

Conceptual Considerations for Payment Bundling in Breast Reconstruction.

Rising health care costs and quality demands have driven both the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the private sector to seek innovations in health system design by placing institutions at financial risk. Novel care models, such as bundled reimbursement, aim to boost value though quality improvement and cost reduction. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation is leading the charge in this area with multiple pilots and mandates, including Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement. Other high-cost and high-volume procedures could be considered for bundling in the future, including breast reconstruction. In this article, conceptual considerations surrounding bundling of breast reconstruction are discussed.

Oncology and Palliative Care Integration: Cocreating Quality and Value in the Era of Health Care Reform.

Recent payment reforms in health care have spurred thinking regarding how strengthened partnerships can cocreate quality and value. Oncology is an important area in which to consider further collaborations in patient care, as a result of increasing treatment complexity from an expanding armamentarium of interventions, large resource expenditures related to cancer care, and a growing disease prevalence related to an aging population. Many have highlighted the important role of palliative care in the routine care of patients with advanced cancer and high symptom burden. Yet, how integration can occur that translates research into usual clinical practice while prioritizing the right patients and settings to maximize outcomes of interest has been inadequately described. We review the evidence for integration of palliative care into routine oncology care and then map the benefits to the requirements put forward by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Oncology Care Model as a use case; we also discuss applications to other evolving payment models.