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ASC takes heat for keeping patients overnight

Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, May 31, 2006

A Kentucky facility licensed as an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) is under scrutiny from the state's Cabinet for Health and Family Services because it kept 19 surgery patients overnight, according to a story in The [Louisville, KY] Courier-Journal.

The debate is over whether patients can stay at Jewish Hospital Medical Center East, located in Louisville, KY, for longer than 24 hours despite a state rule dictating outpatient surgery centers cannot keep patients for overnight stays.

Medical Center East argues that it is following federal regulations that allow some patients to stay for nearly 24 hours postoperatively. This argument caused the state to postpone any corrective action against the facility while it attempts to determine the difference between state and federal laws and whether a new regulation is needed.

Medicare classifies the facility, developed by Jewish Hospital in Louisville, as an "off-campus outpatient provider department," which places it under a special category of federal regulations that allows it to keep patients longer than outpatient centers not part of a hospital, according to The Courier-Journal.

To view The Courier-Journal's story, click here.

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