8/17/2019 Learn How CMS CoPs Help Fight Medical Errors
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The Coding Institute LLC, 2222 Sedwick Road, Durham, NC 27713,
Eenterprise Contact: Sam Nair, Direct: 704 303 8150,
[email protected]
Learn How CMS CoPs Help Fight Medical Errors
By Susan Dooley
When you see the term CoP, do you think of the nickname of your
friendly neighborhood policeman? Or
does your mind immediately jump to the phrase Conditions of
Participation? If you answered the latter,you are a true healthcare
business pro.
Periodically, CMS issues proposed rules that it publishes in the
Federal Register. These proposed rules
revise the requirements, or conditions of participation, that
hospitals must meet to participate in the
Medicare and Medicaid programs.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]
8/17/2019 Learn How CMS CoPs Help Fight Medical Errors
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The Coding Institute LLC, 2222 Sedwick Road, Durham, NC 27713,
Eenterprise Contact: Sam Nair, Direct: 704 303 8150,
[email protected]
Decode CMS’s 2016 Pharmacy and Medication Hospital
CoPs
CMS recently issued a 45-page memo announcing changes to its
hospital CoP standards for pharmacies
effective in 2016, including changes to regulations regarding
medication compounding and beyond-use
dates. Additionally, CMS included language allowing surveyors
inspecting hospitals to be able to cite
organizations for noncompliance.
The CMS memo on pharmaceutical services also regulates infection
control, specifically with safe
injection practices as well as improving the use of
antimicrobial drugs to avoid development of
multidrug-resistant organisms; medication timing changes that
broaden administration time guidelines;
required policies and procedures; standardization of prescribing
and communication practices; and
weight-based dosing calculation standards.
Don’t work in a pharmacy? If your primary focus is on health
information management, you’ll be glad to
know that CMS conditions of participation also cover regulations
on medical records, their organization,
availability, and use. You can download CMS’s State Operations
Manual, including conditions of
participation for medical records, here.
Beat Medical Errors — CMS Joins the Fight
With medication errors being the most common type of medical
error, CMS is highly motivated to crack
down on its oversight of healthcare facility pharmacy services.
The journal BMJ recently published a
study revealing that medical error in inpatient facilities is
the third leading cause of death in the United
States, after heart disease and cancer. The study estimated that
in 2013 alone, 251,454 people died
from a medical error.
The study’s authors, Martin Makary, MD, MPH, professor of
surgery, and research fellow Michael
Daniel, both from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in
Baltimore, Maryland, noted that it’s
tough to capture statistics on medical error deaths. The problem
is a dearth of accurate, transparent
information about medical errors, Makary said, and a medical
coding-related deficit is the root of that
problem, because cause of death information on death
certificates depends on ICD-10-CM codes for
statistics. While the ICD system offers great breadth and depth
of codes for diseases like cancer and
coronary artery disease, the system was not designed to catalog
medical errors.
Dr. Makary explained that no standardized medical statistics
collecting system currently collects
incidence rates for deaths directly attributed to medical
mistakes. “The medical coding system was
designed to maximize billing for physician services, not to
collect national health statistics, as it is
currently being used,” he said. He added that medical errors are
not caused by bad doctors or caregivers
but rather by systemic problems like poor care coordination,
fragmented insurance networks, lack of
safety nets, and other widespread problems.
What About You?
Do your work duties include management of pharmacy
compliance? Let us know.
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8/17/2019 Learn How CMS CoPs Help Fight Medical Errors
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The Coding Institute LLC, 2222 Sedwick Road, Durham, NC 27713,
Eenterprise Contact: Sam Nair, Direct: 704 303 8150,
[email protected]
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Contact Us:
Name: Sam Nair
Title: Associate Director Enterprise Practice
Email: [email protected]
Direct: 704 303 8150
Desk: 866 228 9252, Ext: 4813
The Coding Institute LLC, 2222 Sedwick Road, Durham, NC
27713
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]
