And, here is another point of information for those who think a hospital or health care provider can ignore government influence. Even though you serve almost no Medicare patients, if Medicare investigates you, regardless whether you have done something bad, medical insurance companies won’t insure you. No insurance, no medical care—it is essential to conducting a medical practice.
And from experience, CMS can come down on an organization hard and fast and not have to reveal the reasons why or who made the complaints and for what cause. And don’t forget, the hospital will be paying for the “survey” aka investigation! Oh, and they surely won’t be issuing a refund or paying the hospital for all of the administrative overhead to accomodate them when they’ve spent a week investigating and find that the complaint(s) were malicious and false.
And yes, I have issues with CMS and JCAHO and any other BS accrediting organization in the healthcare industry:)!