Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Medicare's redesigned Provider Statistical and Reimbursement system is making its debut. Medicare's new Internet-based PS&R system at www.cms.hhs.gov/PSRR took effect July 13.

Take note: "Providers will be responsible to obtain their own PS&R Summary Reports needed to file their cost reports for fiscal years ending January 31, 2009 and later," CMS notes on its PS&R site. "Prior to accessing PS&R, each user must first have an ID and password for CMS' Individuals Authorized Access to CMS Computer Systems (IACS)."

Cost reports for years ending prior to Jan. 31, 2009 will still use the legacy PS&R system, CMS notes in an MLN Matters article at www.cms.hhs.gov/MLHMattersArticles/downloads/MM6519.pdf. Providers can request detail reports via the Internet, but their intermediaries or carriers must still send them securely due to their "sensitive data," CMS notes. CMS continues to permit contractors to charge for more than one detail report per year.

Resource: The transmittal is at www.cms.hhs.gov/transmittals/downloads/R153FM.pdf.

• The problem of hospital readmissions has moved up another notch on Medicare's priority list, now that the statistics are listed on the Hospital Compare Web site.

Home care providers could benefit from the development by partnering with hospitals to reduce those readmissions, experts say.

Rehospitalizations are "a possible indicator of how well the facility did the first time around," CMS notes in a press release.

"One in five Medicare beneficiaries who are discharged from a hospital today will re-enter the hospital within a month," the release says. "Reducing the rate of hospital readmissions to improve quality and achieve savings are key components of President Obama's health care reform agenda."

Specifically, the site will show new data on 30-day readmissions for heart attack (average 19.9 percent), heart failure (24.5 percent), and pneumonia (18.2 percent) cases.

The measures are risk-adjusted, CMS adds. "Readmissions are too common and costly, and ...they are often preventable," CMS maintains in a fact sheet about the new data.

The data is on the Hospital Compare site at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

among your employees, you might learn some effective strategies from a new Joint Commission monograph. "The monograph includes information about seasonal influenza and the influenza vaccine, barriers to successful programs and strategies for overcoming them, and examples of successful initiatives organizations have used to improve their influenza vaccination rates," says the Oakbrook Terrace, Ill.-based accrediting body, formerly known as JCAHO.

Collaborators on the project include the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. "Health care worker flu vaccination rates have been less than optimal for years and the vaccination rate is still below 50 percent," says the Commission's Jerod Loeb in a release. "The monograph includes strategies that organizations can employ and provides a foundation to improve vaccination rates."

The monograph is available for free download at www.jointcommission.org.

requirements to help health care facilities better address effective communication, cultural competence, and patient-centered care. The proposed requirements have the potential to further improve the safety and quality of care for all patients, the JC contends. At the earliest, any implementation of the proposed requirements would occur in January 2011. To provide feedback on the value of the proposed requirements, visit: www.jointcommission.org/Standards/FieldReviews/field_ecccpc.htm.