Hospitals face a new set of challenges incorporating the Important Message from Medicare (IM) into an already full routine.

In the HCPro audioconference "The Important Message from Medicare Regulation: Typify your process and ensure compliance," Christine Stottlemyer, CPAM, patient accounting director at Memorial Hospital in York, PA, and Marilyn Hake, RN, CCM, manager of care management (CM) at Memorial, discussed how they managed to implement and demonstrate compliance with the new process without disrupting their successful routine.

Memorial Hospital is a 100-bed acute care facility. The patient population consists of 49% Medicare and 13% Medicare Advantage. In 2007, there were 6,869 patient discharges, with the average length of stay about 3.48 days.