New NOTICE Act Provisions Require Hospitals To Warn Of Medicare Loopholes

President Obama has recently signed the Notice of Observation Treatment and Implication for Care Eligibility (NOTICE) Act into law.  The new statute is intended to prevent patients from having to pick up the tab for a nursing home stay because due to being classified as hospital outpatients the whole time.  It will “prevent Medicare beneficiaries from spending days in a hospital only to find that they hadn’t been admitted to the hospital at all.”  Hospitals will now be required to give patients notice of their outpatient status within 36 hours if they are under observation for more than 24 hours.  The complete text of this new statute can be read here. 

See Obama Signs Law Requiring Hospitals to Warn of Costly Medicare Loophole, Elder Law Answers, August 14, 2015.