Congrats to Center for Medicare Advocacy on Win for Beneficiaries

This case has been going on for over a decade!

The Jan. 25 ruling, which came in response to a 2011 class-action lawsuit eventually joined by 14 beneficiaries against the Department of Health and Human Services, will guarantee patients the right to appeal to Medicare for nursing home coverage if they were admitted to a hospital as an inpatient but were switched to observation care, an outpatient service.

The court’s decision applies only to people with traditional Medicare whose status was changed from inpatient to observation. A hospital services review team can make this change during or after a patient’s stay.

The full opinion is available here.

P.S. I'm on the board of CMA and they do great work!