The healthcare industry experienced significant changes over the last month with Oregon legislators weighing a bill permitting 48-hour stays at ASCs.
Here are five recent legislative changes for ASC leaders to note:
The Oregon Ambulatory Surgery Association is advocating for House Bill 2664, which would allow patients to stay in surgery centers for up to 48 hours after admission. The proposal would require:
• At least half of the extended-care centers to affiliate with a hospital system
• At least five and no more than eight centers can be independent ASCs
President Donald Trump pushed back the implementation of CMS' bundled payments models by 60 days. The delay was one of a series President Trump placed on regulatory changes published in the National Registry, which had not yet taken effect.
CMS postponed the meaningful use deadline for physicians from Feb. 28, 2017 to March 13, 2017. CMS is phasing out such reporting this year, but physicians must still report their meaningful use measures for 2016 to avoid a possible 3 percent penalty.
Florida providers now have the authority to discuss gun safety with their patients after a federal appeals court ruled to overturn a 2011 law preventing physicians from engaging in such conversations. The court maintained a provision in the previous legislation, which states providers cannot deny medical services to patients who own guns.
HHS released a final rule aimed at decreasing the Medicare appeals backlog following a court order for the agency to resolve a backlog that totaled more than 650,000 Medicare appeals in September 2016.