Are you telling me that your facility gives it's services away for free if the beneficiary is admitted and dies the same day? Are you deducting the cost of the charitable services from the facility's taxes each year? (joke) I really don't believe that the facility could afford to do that.
Generally, many of the billers think it's too much trouble to do a full billing for just 5-12 hours of care before the patient dies. On the other hand, many facilities now consider nursing to be a PROFIT center, rather than a cost center. The cost of the services provided (assessment, provision of oxygen, treatments, pain control, hydration, cleansing, positioning, whatever) during those last hours gets pretty expensive, especially when the facility sends out for the meds and supplies, not knowing the patient is going to kick the bucket a little sooner than planned. You can "just do a discharge" prior to assessment and get the default payment for all the work and effort the nurses end up putting out. Or, you can spend the hour and a half going thru the record to do the MDS, and pull in 3 times that amount of money. Maybe nurses somehow assume we shouldn't tell anyone what our work is worth? Corey ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 9:09 PM Subject: Admission/dc same day > Rena,why would my billing office tell me that it is more trouble than it is worth to bill in this situation.Is there some special way that it is done or do we not do it because we would have to for all payor classes.The boss in our billing dept always tell me,what we do for med a we must do for all payor classes.I don't believe we would bill a private patient who came in and died or transferred the same day.Alot of our med a patients come late in the day[even at supper time]we take that day not the hospital. > > /---------------------------------------------------------- > The Case Mix Discussion Group is a free service of the > American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordinators > "Committed to the Assessment Professional" > Be sure to visit the AANAC website. Accurate answers to your > questions posted to NAC News and FAQs. > For more info visit us at http://www.aanac.org > -----------------------------------------------------------/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.553 / Virus Database: 345 - Release Date: 12/18/2003 /---------------------------------------------------------- The Case Mix Discussion Group is a free service of the American Association of Nurse Assessment Coordinators "Committed to the Assessment Professional" Be sure to visit the AANAC website. Accurate answers to your questions posted to NAC News and FAQs. For more info visit us at http://www.aanac.org -----------------------------------------------------------/
