Time to prepare for present-on-admission investigation

CMS completed its phased implementation of the present-on-admission (POA) reporting requirements April 1. That means your POA auditing strategies need to be in place now to ensure proper reimbursement down the road.

The POA reporting initiative is part of a CMS program, mandated by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, that requires quality reporting aimed at ferreting out hospital-acquired conditions.

Under the program, all inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) hospitals had to begin submitting POA information for all Medicare inpatient discharges October 1, 2007.