CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings August 6, 2014
Medicare, part a, would not pay for her stay because she had not been an inpatient in an acute Care Hospital for three days. She asked how that could possibly be true. After all, she had been in the hospital for 13 days. It turned out that the hospital had called her an out patient for all 13 days. The wisconsin woman had no way of knowing she was an outpatient in observation status. She was in a bed in the hospital for 13 nights. She had diagnostic tests, received physician and nursing care, medications, treatment, food, a wristband. Her care was indistinguishable from the medically necessary...