Industry News from AppriseMD

An American College of Physician Advisors’ (ACPA) recent report concurs with earlier data from AppriseMD that many Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) are not complying with the guidelines that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services established under rule 4201-F. In its News to Note from July 20241, the ACPA looked at whether all of the […]

Missing adequate weekend assessments exposes up to 29% of hospital days to potential payment issues. Physicians consider many factors during the complex clinical judgement used in determining a hospital admission. Many hospitals operate with reduced staffing on the weekends, and this can have a significant impact on reimbursement when factoring that weekends encompass approximately 105 […]

As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare claims management widens, the importance of careful oversight is needed. Any use of automation for claim denials should be scrutinized by providers to ensure the denial is appropriate. A recent Healthleaders report asked a key question all revenue cycle managers must consider: What is the balance […]

AppriseMD hospital utilization review data for the first two months of 2024 shows that Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) are denying claims that would have been approved under Traditional Medicare. BACKGROUND MAOs must adhere to the same guidelines as Traditional Medicare as per the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) 2024 rule 4201-F. MAOs can […]

Medicare Advantage (MA) plans traditionally implement more restrictive medical necessity requirements than Traditional Medicare. They also produce a higher denial rate than all other payer categories combined, according to Crowe.  This leaves hospitals investing more time and resources into ensuring appropriate reimbursement. MA plans already account for a generous portion of Medicare plans in the US, and […]

Arising from concerns that the Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) were delaying and denying services and reimbursement, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented 4201-F at the beginning of 2024. This rule was initiated after the publication of a report in April 2022 by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a division of […]

In a report released March 2 by OIG, investigators found “that most 2019 MA (Medicare Advantage) encounter records contained at least one adjustment code and 55 million of these records contained codes that may indicate the denial of payments by MAOs Medicare Advantage Organizations).” The report’s key take away was that while most of the […]

CMS proposed rule impacts how hospitals determine LOS for MA patients   The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed rule changes (CMS-4201) that could have a significant impact on how hospital utilization management determines level of care for Medicare Advantage patients. The proposed rule1 reflects the agency’s focus on increasing transparency, improving health […]

Doctors surveyed by the American Medical Association said the payer prior authorization (PA) process creates delays in care, abandoned treatments and impacts outcomes. The complexity and inconsistencies of payer PA processes continue to create roadblocks to care for both patient and providers, including hospitals. Although the American Medical Association, along with the American Hospital Association, […]

UnitedHealthcare’s Observation Utilization Review Guide is sunsetting and will be replaced by the new Hospital Services: Observation and Inpatient Policy1. The change takes effect Dec. 1, 2022, for commercial, community and exchange plans. The new policy explicitly mentions InterQual, stating “InterQual criteria are intended to be used in connection with the independent professional medical judgment […]

Peer-to-peer discussions between hospital physicians – or their physician advisors – and the insurance company’s medical director can often overturn inpatient denials. But without proper documentation they do not work to rescind denials. Proper documentation must include an assessment coinciding with a detailed treatment plan updated throughout hospitalization. AppriseMD recently recommended to appeal a case […]

In her recent article, “Ghosting the Medicare Provider Appeals Process,” Knicole C. Emanuel Esq. argues that the process by which denied Medicare claims are reviewed and appealed is counter to rest of the U.S. legal system. The lengthy process for addressing denied Medicare claims is multi-tiered and, until recently, hampered by a years-long backlog due […]

Both national evidence-based guidelines and insurance company guidelines factor into level of care determination.   When it comes to determining a patient’s level of care for a short hospital stay, observation services are generally used for short-term monitoring, testing and evaluation to establish a treatment plan, and to give the treatment team time to see […]

The United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit earlier this year aiming to stop UnitedHealth Group from acquiring Change Healthcare.1 Hospital CFOs and utilization review managers have much to watch in this case related to how it could not only impact competition in the markets but how it could impact the guidelines used […]

The American Hospital Association (AHA) updated rural hospital leaders regarding its 2022 Rural Advocacy Agenda during the recent AHA Rural Health Care Leadership Conference in Phoenix, AZ, attended by AppriseMD CEO Franklin E Baumann, MD. “The 2022 Rural Advocacy Agenda focuses on broader, forward-looking legislative and regulatory priorities that are not necessarily connected to the […]

For a traditional Medicare patient admitted for observation, it is not uncommon to remain in the hospital longer than two midnights due to non-medical reasons including waiting for a transfer to another facility or family situations. In these cases, the reason the patient remains hospitalized is the lack of a safe discharge plan. Should such […]

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ decision to not eliminate the inpatient only list (IPO) was due to the numerous comments and feedback it received from the medical community, the COVID-19 public health emergency and the fact that the change “transpired quickly,” according to the final rule (CMS-1753FC) issued in December.1 Heading into 2022, […]

Though it took time and effort, an administrative law judge ruled in favor of a client hospital and overturned a Medicare claim denial for a total knee replacement surgery. The hospital can now fully recover the cost of that surgery, with interest. The case dates back to 2015 when a traditional Medicare patient underwent a […]

We all know in clinical medicine that documentation is everything. Hence the old saying “If it’s not documented, then it didn’t happen.” This is particularly true outside of the clinical realm in the insurance world. Level of care is based on the clinical condition of the patient, how they present and how that meshes with […]

As hospitals in some areas face a new and devastating round of COVID-19 surges, the financial impact on those hospitals is not yet known. This new spike in cases comes on the heels of more than 16-months of instability caused by the pandemic and just when hospitals were starting to make gains financially. According to […]

After what must have been significant feedback, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is now reversing its move to eliminate the inpatient only (IPO) list in 2022 and add back the 298 services removed from the IPO list in 2021. 1 If this goes through in 2022, it will require hospitals to be extra […]

For an update on this issue, please read: CMS reverses course in inpatient only list   The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has begun to dismantle its inpatient only list, which has directed the level of care for more than 1700 procedures for physicians and hospitals since 2000. CMS said the move gives physicians […]

Utilization management programs are often in-house services provided by hospital staff. However, more and more hospitals are outsourcing utilization review management as the pressure mounts to contain costs, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, and improve care. Hospitals benefit from outsourcing utilization review in several ways, as it can: Free up in-house physician advisors and chief […]

There is one relatively easy way hospitals can reduce claims denials: better clinical documentation. Insurance companies require documentation, and it is often the leading factor in level of care and admission denials. The importance of providing complete documentation never goes away. Treating physicians and utilization review managers must ensure that every admission includes: All the […]

There is a seismic shift happening in Utilization Review: As of Saturday, May 1, 2021, UnitedHealthcare, the country’s largest healthcare insurance provider, is changing guidelines to adjudicate the level of care cases for hospitals from Milliman Care Guidelines (MCG) to InterQual.1 AppriseMD will be working closely with our current hospital clients to ensure this is […]

COVID-19 continues to have detrimental effects not only on health of people, but also on the economy and businesses in general. Included in these businesses are hospitals which have been expected to be fully supplied, staffed and ready to provide cutting edge care throughout the pandemic.  According to a new report released in February from […]

“The Hippocratic Oath is one of the oldest binding documents in history. Written in antiquity, its principles are held sacred by doctors to this day: treat the sick to the best of one’s ability, preserve patient privacy, teach the secrets of medicine to the next generation…” 1 As a physician-owned company in which board-certified physicians carry out […]