World Economic

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has notified Forsyth Medical Center it might end Medicare payments Aug. 1 unless the hospital regains compliance in certain areas.

In a letter to employees Monday, Jeff Lindsay, president of Forsyth Medical Center and chief operating officer for the Greater Winston-Salem market of parent company Novant, said the hospital has “taken immediate steps to comply with the standards and will be submitting our formal written response (Tuesday) to show that we have corrected the deficiencies.”

The Medicare notice was a result of a site visit by state regulators July 7-9 who found a deficiency in monitoring patients in certain areas of the hospital.

In the letter, Lindsay said that once federal officials receive Forsyth Medical Center’s plan, they will send a team to re-survey the hospital and ensure the problems have been corrected.

“We are confident that they will accept our plan of correction,” Lindsay wrote. “We fully expect to continue to provide care to Medicare patients and to receive Medicare reimbursement for those services.”

While Medicare reimbursements typically do not cover the full cost of treating those patients, the payments make up a large portion of most hospitals’ revenues.

A similar issue arose at Greensboro’s Moses Cone Health System in June 2009. Medicare officials conducted a follow-up visit within a couple of weeks of finding non-compliance with some regulations and did not ultimately cut off payments.

Source