MHA Today is provided as a service to members of the Missouri Hospital Association. Additional information is available online at MHAnet. In This Issue State Legislators Advance Medical Liability Reform Legislation CMS Provides MOON Instructions CMS Provides Summary Of OP-33 Sampling Methodology CMS Extends eCQM Reporting Deadline
Advocate state and federal health policy developments
Staff Contacts: Daniel Landon or Rob Monsees Today, a state Senate committee voted to advance a new version of Senate Bill 237, which would revise medical liability law to reverse the Jefferson v. Missouri Baptist court ruling. The effect will be to narrow hospital liability for those who are not hospital employees. MHA supports the committee’s refinements. The committee also approved Senate Bill 5, which includes a component precluding the use of the Merchandising Practices Act in cases involving personal injury or death. Also, other legislative committees have approved tort reform bills to revise the standards for expert witnesses in court proceedings and to revamp the “collateral source rule.” The latter concerns the valuation of services in assessing damages in a lawsuit. Back To Top
Regulatory News the latest actions of agencies monitoring health care
Staff Contact: Andrew Wheeler The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued instructions to providers about the Medicare Outpatient Observation Notice. The MOON was established to inform a Medicare beneficiary when they are receiving outpatient observation services. The instructions revise Chapter 30 of the Medicare claims processing manual, and apply to both acute inpatient PPS and critical access hospitals. Back To Top
Quality and Population Health
Staff Contact: Sherry Buschjost To assist hospitals and abstractors to better understand the OP-33: External Beam Radiotherapy for Bone Metastases measure, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has summarized the measure’s sampling methodology. Historically, measures in the Hospital Outpatient Quality Reporting Program are reported at the encounter level. Though the population and sampling guidelines will remain the same for OP-33, the numerator and denominator for the population will be reported at the anatomic site level. For example, if the sampling requirements indicate 100 encounters, and within those 100 encounters are 120 different treatment sites, the denominator for OP-33 will be 120 to represent the number of sites rather than the number of encounters. The numerator will be the number of sites within the denominator population that meet the recommended fractionation schemes as outlined in the OQR specifications manual. Back To Top
Staff Contact: Sarah Willson The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has extended the deadline for 2016 electronic clinical quality measures to Monday, March 13. CMS also announced its intention to revise 2017 reporting requirements for fiscal year 2018 in an effort to reduce regulatory burden. Back To Top
In the U.S., an estimated 2.7 million to 3.9 million people have chronic hepatitis C, at least 20,000 a year die from it and it is the leading cause of liver transplants. Source: The New York Times