Following an HHS rewrite of Medicare Interpretive Guidelines for ASCs, several states have been beefing up requirements for state licensing renewals and Medicare recertification this year, according to Fred W. Ortmann III, founder and CEO of Ortmann Healthcare Consultants.
Since June, Mr. Ortman says he has been contacted by about 20 ASCs in Louisiana, Florida and several western states reporting on the new Interpretive Guidelines. The states have been using federal stimulus funding to beef up their inspection teams, he added.
The ASCs have been cited following an inspection for not meeting the new quality standards, he says. Centers that fail an inspection are given 10 days to prepare a plan of correction. If the plan is accepted, the ASC has less than a month to prepare for another survey. Mr. Ortman says an ASC in Louisiana, which he would not identify at this time, is close to being shuttered by state authorities.
"This dramatically increases the regulatory burden on ASCs," he says.
Mr. Ortman, whose knowledge of Washington processes comes from working in the Nixon White House, says the new 75-page Interpretive Guidelines document was not legitimate because it was not listed in the Federal Register. He says he wrote the General Accounting Office about this error and a GAO official wrote him back saying HHS had had been contacted and stood by the new rules.
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