CMS releases participation revision for hospitals
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) could be flipping the script on the requirements that hospitals and critical access hospitals (CAHs) must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The agency released a notice of proposed rulemaking stating that “these proposed changes are an integral part of our efforts to reduce procedural burdens on providers.”
The document includes a number of revisions including the provision to revise the “governing body” requirements to state that “[t]here must be an effective governing body that is legally responsible for the conduct of the hospital… We would retain the current provision that requires the persons legally responsible for the conduct of the hospital to carry out the functions specified in…our regulations that pertain to the governing body if the hospital does not have an organized governing body.”
CMS also proposed that hospitals be required to notify CMS of deaths involving only the use of soft two-point wrist restraints and no use of seclusion within seven days after the date of death through a log or other system where a record would include, at minimum, the patient’s name, date of birth, date of death, attending physician, primary diagnosis(/es) and medical record number.
The CMS condition of participation on “medical staff” concerns the organization and accountability of the hospital medical staff to further modernize hospitals’ medical staffing policies. One proposition includes adding language to clarify that a hospital may grant privileges to both physicians and non-physicians to practice within their state scope of practice, regardless of whether they are also appointed to the hospital’s medical staff.
“That is, technical membership in a hospital’s medical staff would not be a prerequisite for a hospital’s governing body to grant practice privileges to practitioners,” the notice clarified.
Comments will be received for a 60-day period from the publication date of Oct. 24. Comments will be accepting electronically, by regular mail, by express or overnight mail or by hand/courier.
Read the 75-page notice by clicking here.
The document includes a number of revisions including the provision to revise the “governing body” requirements to state that “[t]here must be an effective governing body that is legally responsible for the conduct of the hospital… We would retain the current provision that requires the persons legally responsible for the conduct of the hospital to carry out the functions specified in…our regulations that pertain to the governing body if the hospital does not have an organized governing body.”
CMS also proposed that hospitals be required to notify CMS of deaths involving only the use of soft two-point wrist restraints and no use of seclusion within seven days after the date of death through a log or other system where a record would include, at minimum, the patient’s name, date of birth, date of death, attending physician, primary diagnosis(/es) and medical record number.
The CMS condition of participation on “medical staff” concerns the organization and accountability of the hospital medical staff to further modernize hospitals’ medical staffing policies. One proposition includes adding language to clarify that a hospital may grant privileges to both physicians and non-physicians to practice within their state scope of practice, regardless of whether they are also appointed to the hospital’s medical staff.
“That is, technical membership in a hospital’s medical staff would not be a prerequisite for a hospital’s governing body to grant practice privileges to practitioners,” the notice clarified.
Comments will be received for a 60-day period from the publication date of Oct. 24. Comments will be accepting electronically, by regular mail, by express or overnight mail or by hand/courier.
Read the 75-page notice by clicking here.