New HCFA rules protect Medicare/Medicaid patients
August 1, 1999 less than 1 minute read
New HCFA rules protect Medicare/Medicaid patients
New rules unveiled recently by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) in Baltimore, MD, are intended to protect the health and welfare of hospitalized patients treated under Medicare and Medicaid, but they could represent a new challenge for risk managers trying to avoid regulatory troubles.
The new regulations were published in the July 2, 1999, Federal Register, after HCFA pulled them from a larger proposed revision of the hospital Conditions of Participation regulation. They are effective Aug. 25, 1999, and HCFA says the published regulations were separated from the larger proposal so the patient protection provisions could be put in place immediately.
Under the new regulations, hospitals are required to provide patients and their families with formal notice of their rights at the time of admission. Those rights include the right to be free from restraints and seclusion in any form when used as a means of coercion, discipline, convenience, or retaliation, HCFA said in a statement announcing the new regulations.
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