(1) All facilities operating and licensed as hospitals in the State of Arkansas by the Department of Health, Division of Health Facility Services, will report discharge data to the department for each patient admitted as an inpatient or with at least one (1) full day of stay (overnight).
(2)
(A) Discharge data means the consolidation of complete billing, medical, and personal information describing a patient, the services received, and charges billed for a single inpatient hospital stay.
(B) The consolidation of discharge data is a discharge data record.
(C) The formats are defined later in this guide.
(b)
(1) For a patient with multiple discharges, submit one (1) discharge data record for each discharge.
(2) For a patient with multiple billing claims (refer to 20 CAR § 54-106(g), Multi-hospital submission), consolidate the multiple billings into one (1) discharge data record for submission after the patient’s discharge.
(3) A discharge data record is submitted for each discharge, not for each bill generated.
(4) The discharge data record should be submitted for the reporting period within which the discharge occurs.
(5) If a claim will not be submitted to a provider or carrier for collection (e.g., charitable service), a hospital discharge data record should still be submitted to the department, with the normal and customary charges, as if the claim was being submitted.
(6) All acute and intensive care discharges or deaths, including newborn discharges or deaths, should be reported.
(c)
(1) A hospital may submit discharge data directly to the department, or may designate an intermediary, such as a commercial data clearinghouse.
(2) Use of an intermediary does not relieve the hospital from its reporting responsibility.
(d)
(1) In order to facilitate communication and problem solving, each hospital should designate a person as contact.
(2) Please provide the office name, telephone number, job title, and name of the person assigned this responsibility.