Image of male nurse pushing senior woman in a wheelchair in nursing facility

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is holding a special Open Door Forum conference call at 1 p.m. (Eastern Time) Tuesday to discuss the “two-midnight” hospital inpatient policy. Callers also can ask questions about physician order, physician certification and medical review criteria. They were previously released in August in the fiscal 2014 Inpatient Prospective Payment System/Long-Term Care Hospital final rule.

The two-midnight rule is of special interest to long-term care providers, who are among the many groups critical of hospitals’ “overuse” of the “observation stay” label for some patients. To obtain Medicare coverage at a skilled nursing facility, an individual first needs a three-day qualifying stay as a hospital inpatient.

For dial-in information and more about the Open Door Forum, click here.