The attached GNYHA document, Safety and Security Considerations for Hospitals, synthesizes strategies compiled by a GNYHA workgroup of health care security directors and external law enforcement representatives. The considerations are organized into four sections—staff and vendor management, patient and visitor management, physical security, and emergency department security—and a fifth section provides links to tools and…

August 1 marks the unofficial beginning of the North Atlantic’s hurricane season and GNYHA and its members have been hard at work to prepare for the season. GNYHA led a workgroup earlier this year that focused on expanding hospitals’ ability to receive patients during coastal storms, including patients evacuated from hospitals located in a flood…

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Medicare outpatient prospective payment system (OPPS) proposed rule for calendar year 2019 contains harmful “site-neutral” proposals, including reducing payment rates for evaluation & management (E&M) services provided at “excepted” off-campus hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) to 40% of the applicable OPPS rate, and paying the lower rate for…

On July 31, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPF) prospective payment system (PPS) final rule for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2019, which begins October 1, 2018. The final rule updated payment rates and changed quality measures. CMS has not revised the patient- and facility-level adjustments to the…

On August 2, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its fiscal year 2019 inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) final rule. In addition to many other provisions affecting Medicare payments to hospitals, the final rule included the following provisions related to graduate medical education (GME) payments to teaching hospitals: Resident slots available for…

This calculator reflects the estimated IPF PPS payment rates finalized for FY 2019. To calculate your IPF payment, please select your institution, the patient’s age and principal diagnosis from the drop-down boxes below. Next, enter the length of stay, number of electroconvulsive therapy occurrences, and total charges for the desired case. Finally, select all comorbidities…

On July 31, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) prospective payment system (PPS) final rule for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2019, which begins October 1, 2018. The rule updates the payment rates, case mix group (CMG) relative weights, and the outlier threshold. CMS also changed the required…

On July 31, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) prospective payment system (PPS) final rule for Federal fiscal year (FY) 2019, which begins October 1, 2018. The rule updates the payment rates, case mix group (CMG) relative weights, and the outlier threshold. CMS also changed the required…

GNYHA hosted a meeting last week at which Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) staff and senior clinical quality leaders from GNYHA member hospitals discussed proposed changes to Medicare’s hospital quality and value payment programs. MedPAC is an independent, nonpartisan Congressional agency established by Federal statute to advise Congress on programs and policies that affect the…

Primary care residents from GNYHA member teaching hospitals and leadership from community-based organizations (CBOs) who participated in GNYHA’s Improving Collaboration Between Primary Care Residency Programs and Community-Based Organizations project will join a panel discussion at an educational symposium on September 20 at the New York Academy of Medicine. The program is the closing event for…