As of Saturday, a new Medicare law is in force that requires hospitals to notify patients of the possibility that they could incur substantial out-of-pocket medical costs if their stay is more than 24 hours without being formally admitted. The problem stems from patients who are under “observation”—for fear of Medicare penalizing over inappropriate admissions—making them liable for large hospital bills; further, Medicare will not pay for any subsequent nursing home care, unless the patient was an inpatient for three consecutive days. Patients can expect to start receiving these warnings in January. With this new law, the estimated notices per year are 1.4 million.
See Robert Pear, New Medicare Law to Notify Patients of Loophole in Nursing Home Coverage, NY Times, August 6, 2016.
Special thanks to Jerry Borison (Professor of Law, University of Denver Strum College of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.
