White Paper: Mastering the three-day payment rule

CMS’ three-day rule defines certain preadmission services as inpatient operating costs, meaning they are bundled and billed as part of the inpatient claim and payment is made as part of the applicable DRG payment for the case. This sounds simple, and there had been very little new guidance for years, so how did it get to the point of causing such major confusion for hospitals that Congress eventually included a clarification in controversial healthcare legislation?