Health plans increasingly outsource processes and programs to specialized partners to improve care, streamline administrative processes, establish accreditation credentials, and expand access to care coordination. Year over year, business process outsourcing by health plans has grown 22 percent.1
Infants admitted to a hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) are understood to be those born prematurely or with medical complexities, warranting care that, by definition, is more intensive and also more costly than that provided to a healthy newborn. However, accepting the accuracy of this scenario may lead to a significant misinterpretation regarding your NICU population. Specifically, what happens to your analysis when the care of healthy newborns is being billed as NICU services?
World Prematurity Day (WPD) is recognized each year on November 17. It has been eleven years since it’s initiation by the European Foundation for the Care of Newborn Infants (EFCNI). Designed to act as a reminder of the human and financial costs of premature births around the world, the theme this year is one that is often the goal of medical quality improvement experts, health care administrators, payers, and medical professionals throughout the United States: “Born Too Soon - Providing the right care, at the right time, in the right place.”
