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patient agreements. The hospital generally requires each patient
to agree to pay for all charges incurred while in the hospital
upon demand by the hospital. Medicare,7 Blue Cross, health
maintenance organization (HMO), and some other insurance plan
patients, however, are responsible only for a copayment.8
For acute care hospital patients, the nurses and patient
attendants perform a wide variety of services, including, but not
limited to, assisting physicians during patient examinations and
medical procedures and treatments, administering medications,
preparing and operating specialized equipment used in treating
patients, monitoring patients' conditions, serving meals to
patients and regulating and monitoring their food intake,
assisting in bathing patients, and helping them into and out of
bed. Nurses and other hospital personnel also are involved in
surgical procedures performed at a hospital. If an acute care
hospital maintains a delivery room and obstetric care and newborn
care units, delivery room nurses and other staff employees assist
the physician in the delivery of newborn infants, provide daily
7
During the years involved, petitioners received
reimbursements from Medicare equal to 35 percent to 43 percent of
the total operating revenues reported on the Forms 10-K filed
with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
8
When Medicare is the third-party payer, hospitals can
collect only the "Medicare co-payments" from patients. Should
the total payments from Medicare and the patient not equal the
total amount billed to the patient, the hospital is not allowed
to collect the difference from the patient.
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Last modified: May 25, 2011