{"id":39914,"date":"2014-02-25T14:23:19","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T20:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=39914"},"modified":"2014-02-25T16:29:16","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T22:29:16","slug":"sen-hoeven-intro-bill-protect-rural-hospitals-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=39914","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Hoeven Intro Bill Protect Rural Hospitals, Patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\"vcMercyHosp\"<\/a>WASHINGTON \u2013 Senator John Hoeven Monday joined Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to introduce bipartisan legislation to protect rural Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) and their patients by eliminating new \u201ccondition of payment\u201d rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that require a physician to predict and limit a patients\u2019 stay to within 96 hours. The bill has 13 cosponsors.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompelling doctors to predict at the outset that a patient needs to stay in the hospital no longer than 96 hours could result in patients being release before they are fully treated, and then being readmitted because they didn\u2019t get the care they needed in the first place,\u201d Hoeven said. \u201cDoctors need to have the flexibility to do what is in the best interest of their patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis rule requires doctors to be clairvoyant and predict the unknown at the time of admission instead of focusing on treating a patient to the best of their abilities,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cWe need to focus on ensuring rural patients have access to the health system, not come up with bureaucratic ways to make it harder for patients in rural areas to get quality care from their doctors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPutting arbitrary limits on how many hours patients can stay in critical access hospitals is dangerous and violates the trust patients put in their doctors and nurses,\u201d Tester said.\u00a0 \u201cCritical access hospitals play a vital role in providing quality and affordable healthcare in rural communities, and we shouldn’t shortchange the care someone receives because of their zip code.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senators\u2019 bill, the Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2014, removes the \u201ccondition of payment\u201d for Critical Access Hospitals that requires a physician to certify upon admission that each patient will be discharged or transferred in less than 96 hours.<\/p>\n

At issue is whether the hospital can be reimbursed if, for instance, a physician certifies that they expect the patient to be treated and discharged within 96 hours, but the situation changes and the patient must be kept longer.\u00a0 The physician will be faced with a scenario in which they have failed to meet the terms of their certification. This is likely to lead to premature discharges and readmissions, both of which CMS has taken actions to minimize. In some cases, rural patients may be forced to travel to an urban hospital a great distance away.<\/p>\n

The bill is cosponsored by Senators Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mike Johanns (R-Neb.).<\/p>\n

Critical Access Hospitals in North Dakota Includes<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jamestown Regional Medical Center<\/p>\n

Mercy Hospital, Valley City<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0WASHINGTON \u2013 Senator John Hoeven Monday joined Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to introduce bipartisan legislation to protect rural Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) and their patients by eliminating new \u201ccondition of payment\u201d rules from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that require a physician to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26946,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39914"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39932,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39914\/revisions\/39932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}