On September 26, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released new rules reducing what CMS views as unnecessary burden for health care providers. As explained in the CMS press release, "the Omnibus Burden Reduction (Conditions of Participation) Final Rule strengthens patient safety by removing unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome health regulations on hospitals and other healthcare providers."
The new rules allow health systems to share quality assessment staff among hospitals in the health system. Prior to these rules, each hospital was required to have its own staff providing quality assessment. Furthermore, the rules remove the provision that requires transplant centers that are applying for Medicare re-approval to meet all data submission, clinical experience, and outcome requirements in order to be re-approved.
CMS also issued a final rule on discharge planning aimed at supporting interoperability and patient preferences. The rule requires hospitals to provide patients information on post-acute care providers, including performance on quality measures and resource-use measures. Additionally, the rule requires hospitals to evaluate quality measures when assisting patients during discharge planning.
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