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What CMS IPPS final rule means for hospitalists

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, August 5, 2008

Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) final rule that updates Medicare payments to hospitals.  The CMS rule aims to improve inpatient care and to reduce the occurrence of “never events,” or medical errors, including hospital acquired conditions (HAC).  

How will the new updates affect hospitalists?  Hospitalists are uniquely positioned to perform overall system implementation through standardization, according to Eric Siegel, MD, regional medical director of Cogent Healthcare and Chair of the Society of Hospital Medicine Public Policy Committee. “The key to improving performance in a hospital is to reduce unnecessary variation in processes. If there’s one best way to do something, there shouldn’t be people doing it six different ways,” said Siegal, in an interview with HCPro, Inc. “Hospitalists can put systems in place to reduce that variation.”

The IPPS final rule is anticipated to affect more than 3,500 hospitals that currently receive payment under Medicare’s diagnosis related group (DRG) payment system.

Read more about the role hospitalists play in CMS rules in a pay-for-performance article in the upcoming September issue of Hospitalist Management Advisor.     

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