I am particularly concerned with Medicare patients. I am working with the mfr. of Pleurx drainage systems to try & solve the problem of pts. not having enough drainage bottles after discharge to get by until they get home delivery. My question is: if you discharge a patient with, say, 5 bottles, can the hospital bill Medicare Part B & get paid for them outside of the DRG payment?

I do not believe that you can bill that way. You need to send them home with the supply they need until they get their supplies delivered. There is a company in Ohio called EdgePark Medical supply, the turn around time is 5 days to delevery to home, that specializes in pleurex cathters, they have a whole dept. that does the authorizations for them .

I agree. You cannot separately bill the patient's Medicare for home supplies. That's why I believe that discharge planning should take place at admission and continue through actual discharge from the hospital. It helps the problems seen with discharge back into the home environment.

we've had good luck with edge park overnighting supplies in a pinch. i'm not sure if it's because we are an insurer (and maybe have better reimbursement rates?) but it might be worth looking into. 5 days sure is a long time...