Discharge Planning: Compliance with CMS Hospital & CAH CoPs 2025
July 01,2025
December 31,2025
All Days
90 Minutes
Recorded Webinar
Healthcare
Every hospital that accepts Medicare and Medicaid must comply with the CMS discharge planning guidelines. These standards must be followed for all patients and not just Medicare or Medicaid. CMS published changes to the discharge planning standards in February 2020, but has yet to publish revised interpretive guidelines and survey procedures to match the new regulations.
This program will briefly discuss the Impact Act and how it affects hospital discharge planning. It requires standardized assessment, quality data, and resource data requirements. It requires hospitals to assist patients with post-discharge care such as home health, skilled nursing facilities, long-term care hospitals, and inpatient rehab facilities. Information on all four must be provided to the patients, except for Critical Access Hospitals.
Patients have a right to timely access to their medical records, which must include the discharge planning process, discharge instructions, and discharge planning requirements. This program will address transfers to other facilities, assessment of readmission within 30 days, caregiver rights and recommendations, reduction of factors that lead to preventable readmissions, timely discharge planning, and more.
Discharge Planning Conditions of participation for Critical Access hospitals will be discussed briefly. Those regulations follow the Acute hospital's requirements.
Learning Objectives:-
- Discuss that CMS has revised the discharge planning requirements that apply to all hospitals and critical access hospitals
- Recall that patients and physicians can request a discharge planning evaluation
- Discuss that information about the hospitalization must be provided to the physician or provider before the first post-hospital visit
- Describe that the patient has a right to get medical records timely including a copy of their discharge plan
Agenda:-
- Introduction
- Deficiency data for discharge planning
- Discharge planning process and the IMPACT Act
- Identification of patients needing discharge planning
- Role of a support person
- Incapacitated patient
- Discharge planning process
- RN, social worker, or qualified person to develop the evaluation
- Timely evaluation
- Discussion of evaluation with the patient or the individual acting on their behalf
- Discharge evaluation in the medical record
- Documentation of the discharge process
- Discharge plan
- Physician's request for discharge planning
- Implementation of the patient’s discharge plan
- Reassessment of the discharge plan
- Freedom of choice for post-acute care providers
- Transfer or referral
- Critical Access Hospital Discharge Planning Requirements
- Discharge planning metrics
- Appendix and Resources
Who Will Benefit?
- Discharge planners
- Transitional care nurses
- Social workers
- All staff nurses who discharge patients in a hospital setting
- Chief nursing officer
- Nurse educators
- Chief operation officer
- Chief medical officers
- Physicians
- Risk managers
- Regulatory/Compliance officer
- Chief executive officer
- Nurse managers
- PI director
- Health information director
- Patient safety officer
- Any person serving on a hospital committee to redesign the discharge process to prevent unnecessary readmissions.
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* For 6+ attendees call us at + 1 (844) 449-0244 or mail us at cs@currentwebinar.com
Laura A. Dixon served as the Director, Facility Patient Safety and Risk Management, and Operations for COPIC from 2014 to 2020. In her role, Ms. Dixon provided patient safety and risk management consulting and training to facilities, practitioners, and staff in multiple states.
Such services included the creation of presentations on risk management topics, assessment of healthcare facilities; and development of programs and compilation of reference materials that complement physician-oriented products.
Ms. Dixon has more than twenty years of clinical experience in acute care facilities, including critical care, coronary care, peri-operative services, and pain management. Prior to joining COPIC, she served as the Director of, Western Region, Patient Safety, and Risk Management for The Doctors Company, Napa, California.
In this capacity, she provided patient safety and risk management consultation to the physicians and staff in the western United States. Ms. Dixon’s legal experience includes representation of clients for Social Security Disability Insurance providing legal counsel and representation at disability hearings and appeals, medical malpractice defense, and representation of nurses before the Colorado Board of Nursing.
As a registered nurse and attorney, Laura holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Regis University, RECEP of Denver, a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree from Drake University College of Law, Des Moines, Iowa, and a Registered Nurse Diploma from Saint Luke’s School Professional Nursing, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is licensed to practice law in Colorado and California.
