About Laws & Regulations
Navigating the vast network of health care laws and regulations is difficult. To help hospitals, CHA produces manuals and guidebooks, including the Consent Manual, a one-stop resource for all legal requirements related to patient consent for medical treatment, release of medical information, reporting requirements and more; the Model Medical Staff Bylaws and Rules, which outline the framework for working relationships among medical staff, hospital administrators and governing bodies; and the California Hospital Compliance Manual, which covers high-risk compliance issues. CHA also represents California hospitals’ interests in court on issues, including reimbursement, labor and employment, and more.
CHA Translates Required Patient Language Assistance Taglines
What’s happening: Regulations recently adopted by the Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) under the Hospital Fair Pricing Policies Law require hospitals to provide “taglines” on patient documents in several different languages.
What else to know: The taglines inform patients that language assistance services are available and how to access them. CHA has included a tagline sheet with translations in 18 languages.
CDPH’s Centralized Application Evolution
The Center for Health Care Quality (CHCQ) licenses and certifies over 14,000 health care facilities and agencies in California in 30 different licensure and certification categories. Keeping licensing and certification practices consistent throughout California can be challenging. The Centralized Program Flex Unit (CPFU), a division of CHCQ, has a mission to ensure standardization and consistency […]
CHA Summary: Proposed Changes for Oversight of Accrediting Organizations
What’s happening: CHA is sharing its summary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) proposed rule intended to strengthen oversight of accrediting organizations (AOs) such as The Joint Commission and Det Norske Veritas.
What else to know: While the proposed policies are applicable to AOs, several proposed changes will affect hospitals and health systems that rely on AO accreditation.
AHA Will Host Webinar on Hospital Price Transparency Requirements
What’s happening: The American Hospital Association (AHA) will host a members-only webinar on April 10 at noon (PT) to discuss new hospital price transparency machine-readable format requirements.
What else to know: CHA encourages AHA members to register.
CHA Unveils Appellate Advocacy Tracker
What’s happening: CHA has released an appellate advocacy tracker that reports CHA’s amicus efforts to provide courts with important factual context and legal analysis, highlighting the ramifications of legal issues for hospitals.
What else to know: The tracker contains both the links to the amicus documents that CHA files and the outcome of these efforts.
HQI and AQIPS Will Host 2024 Patient Safety Evaluation System Virtual Summit
What’s happening: Hospital Quality Institute and the Alliance for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety will host the Patient Safety Evaluation System 2024 Virtual Summit on May 21-22 from 8 a.m. to noon (PT).
What else to know: The summit will provide information on how to improve communication internally and with patients and strengthen patient care delivery. Registration is open.
CHA Encourages Members to Participate in the Vitality Index Payer Scorecard
What’s happening: CHA is endorsing member participation in the Vitality Index Payer Scorecard, which will provide critical information to support CHA’s advocacy to hold insurers accountable for timely and accurate reimbursement.
What else to know: The CHA Board of Trustees has endorsed this tool, which will automatically draw de-identified claims and remittance information from hospitals without requiring additional reporting or surveys.
CHA Sponsors Legislation to Address the 2030 Seismic Standards
What’s happening: CHA is sponsoring legislation to address the 2030 seismic standards and supports Assembly Bill (AB) 869 (Wood, D-Healdsburg), which provides seismic relief for rural and district hospitals.
What else to know: A bipartisan group of Senators is jointly authoring CHA’s sponsored legislation.
CMS Releases Data on No Surprises Act Payment Disputes
What’s happening: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released publicly available independent dispute resolution (IDR) reports for the first two quarters of reporting year 2023.
What else to know: The report includes certain data submitted by disputing parties and certified IDR entities to the No Surprises Act (NSA) federal IDR portal.
CMS Finalizes Medicaid DSH Third-Party Payment Calculation
What’s happening: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized changes to how states calculate the hospital-specific cap for Medicaid disproportionate share hospitals (DSH).
What else to know: The rule is effective April 23.