{"id":190870,"date":"2015-02-03T04:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T18:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=190870"},"modified":"2015-02-03T04:00:47","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T18:00:47","slug":"chcc-readmissions-national-average-muna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/chcc-readmissions-national-average-muna\/","title":{"rendered":"CHCC readmissions below national average\u2014Mu\u00f1a"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Health Center\u2019s statistic on readmissions has remained steady below the national average, according to Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. CEO Esther Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

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Muna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This helps the CNMI\u2019s lone public hospital avoid fines from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so it doesn\u2019t lose funds, Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n

She noted that throughout fiscal year 2014 (October 2013 to September 2014), compliance with CMS regulations has improved and that is evident in the survey conducted on Sept. 29, 2014.<\/p>\n

As of September of last year, the hospital\u2019s readmission rate was at about 13.6 percent, much less than the national average of 20 percent.<\/p>\n

CMS Medicare program fines any hospital that has high readmission rates. For example, if Medicare normally pays a hospital $15,000 for a kidney failure patient, a 1.5 percent penalty means Medicare would deduct $225 and pay just $14,775.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conditions that yield penalty for readmissions are for heart failure, heart attack, pneumonia, and chronic lung problems. Penalties are up to 3 percent and are calculated by Medicare contractors,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n

The penalty does not apply to other Medicare payments for a hospital\u2019s general operating expenses, training of medical residents, or treatment of large numbers of low-income patients.<\/p>\n

For penalized hospitals, CMS will reduce each payment for a patient stay from October 2014 through September 2015, which is the federal fiscal year.<\/p>\n

CHC has remained at a steady pace compared to 2013 where its readmission rate was usually above 18 percent and even higher.<\/p>\n

CMS made these laws so that hospitals would take care of its patients effectively and remaining steady helps with the reimbursement it receives from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the readmissions we see are because patients have not properly managed their diseases\u2014they stopped their medications and haven\u2019t followed up with their doctor. This is why we have been accelerating our campaign for our residents to visit their doctor regularly, take their medication, and live an active and healthy life. Reopening the Internal Medicine clinic helps as well,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n

CHCC has also been recognized with a \u201cPursuit of Excellence Certificate\u201d from Mountain Pacific (Medicare Quality Improvement Organization) for maintaining lower admission rates.<\/p>\n

CHCC\u2019s Corporate Quality and Performance Management department provides for the implementation and advancement of the hospital\u2019s programmatic requirements.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll programs within CQPM for the hospital that includes infection control, utilization review\/discharge planning, and quality management are continuously maintaining its programmatic efforts, as well as making significant progress toward meeting CMS\u2019 conditions of participations,\u201d Mu\u00f1a said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCQPM also coordinates the utilization review and discharge planning program. In fiscal year 2014, the program continued to monitor all hospital admissions for appropriateness. This initiative ensures that all admissions fall under a medical necessity as defined by best practice criteria and that the quality of care is delivered based on the standard of care and its medical necessity and that the services are reimbursable per CMS,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Commonwealth Health Center\u2019s statistic on readmissions has remained steady below the national average, according…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":190888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[666,919,1597,1598],"class_list":["post-190870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chcc","tag-cms","tag-cqpm","tag-internal-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}