Home Health & Hospice Week

Informal dispute resolution will give agencies a chance to point out surveyor mistakes.Medicare's newly proposed alternative sanctions for home health agencies aren't all bad.Use of alternative sanctions will get some HHAs off the termination track, experts note. "The availability of multiple new alternatives and the codification of existing alternatives will be a welcome relief to those agencies that previously faced termination as the only sanction," says attorney Marie Berliner with Joy & Young in Austin, Texas. "It should also help to reduce some of the tensions between surveyors and agency staff that arise when a survey is underway.""Having sanctions other than terminations might save some agencies," agrees attorney Robert Markette Jr. with Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff in Indianapolis. "Rather than moving to terminate, you will probably see lesser sanctions invoked with some frequency."It isn't unusual for attorney Jim Pyles with Pyles Powers Sutter & Verville in Washington, D.C. to [...]