The law, the Notice of Observation Treatment and Implication for Care Eligibility (NOTICE) Act, did not eliminate the practice of placing patients under “observation” for extended periods, but it did require hospitals to notify patients who are under observation for more than 24 hours of their outpatient status within 36 hours, or upon discharge if that occurs sooner. The Act required hospitals to begin giving patients this notice as of March 8, 2017. Some states, including California and New York, already require such notice.
To avoid violating the law, hospitals that accept Medicare patients will now have to explain to patients under observation that because they are receiving outpatient, not inpatient, care, their hospital stay will not count toward the three-day inpatient stay requirement and that they will be subject to Medicare’s outpatient cost-sharing requirements. The law does not make hospital observation stays count towards Medicare’s three-day requirement.
For an article from USA Today about the new requirement, click here.
For the text of the NOTICE Act, click here.
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