The Congress and the Secretary should define long-term care hospitals by facility and patient criteria that ensure that patients admitted to these facilities are medically complex and have a good chance of improvement.
* Facility-level criteria should characterize this level of care by features such as staffing, patient evaluation and review processes, and mix of patients.
* Patient-level criteria should identify specific clinical characteristics and treatment modalities.
Defining long-term care hospitals (A)
June 15, 2004