Regulations:
Add One More Notice To Patients' Paperwork Mountain
Published on Tue Jan 11, 2011
QIO complaint process newest notification requirement proposed. In addition to all the other notices you give home care patients, you may soon be giving them information about how to complain about you. A new Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposal "would require most Medicare participating providers and suppliers to give Medicare beneficiaries written notice about their right to contact a Medicare Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) with concerns about the quality of care they receive under the Medicare program," the agency says in a release. Currently, only hospital inpatients are given this type of information about contacting a QIO. But if the new proposal is finalized, a long list of provider types, including home health agencies and hospices, would have to inform beneficiaries about how to complain to a QIO. "By requiring providers and suppliers to furnish QIO contact information to all beneficiaries, we are protecting beneficiaries' rights to bring [...]