Home Health & Hospice Week

If the hurricane season so far is any indication, home care providers should be prepared to deal with flooding, power outages and any number of natural disaster-caused calamities.

Hurricane Gustav left many Louisiana home health agencies without power and their patients without needed supplies like water and oxygen. HHA staff also had difficulty securing re-entry passes for some parishes, HHA executives reported on the HomeCare Association of Louisiana's forum for 2008 hurricanes. Downed power lines left travel dangerous for days after the storm.

Home care patients without acute needs were also rejected from hospitals but not accepted into special needs-designated shelters prior to the hurricane, Louisiana HHAs said on the forum.

At press time, Hurricane Ike was beginning to hit Texas and Louisiana and was expected to cause similar problems for those states' agencies, in addition to the evacuation-related issues already incurred by Florida HHAs. Hurricane Hanna also had caused flooding and other disruptions, although its impact was not as severe as Gustav's.

New demo: In response to the heavy storm season, the Department of Health and Human Services has launched a "Disaster Case Manage-ment" demonstration program, HHS says in a release. The program should "make it easier for disaster victims to obtain a wide range of assistance and social services."

The program will link beneficiaries with a single case manager at a disaster assistance center. "This program is intended to provide fast, one-stop shopping for those who need help," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt says in a release. "Our goal is a coordinated system that links disaster victims with a single contact who will help them determine what help they need, who provides it, and how to get it," Secretary Leavitt said.

Regional home health intermediaries Pal-metto GBA and Cahaba GBA sent links to the Cen-ters for Medicare & Medicaid Services' hurricane information to their providers. "Please note that the condition code 'DR' (Disaster Related), and modifier 'CR' (Catastrophe/Disaster Related), which were both created in response to Hurricane Katrina, may be used when billing services provided to beneficiaries affected by Hurricane Gustav," Cahaba adds in an email.

Definitions: "The condition code 'DR' identifies claims that are impacted or may be impacted by specific payer policies related to a national or regional disaster," Cahaba continues. "The modifier 'CR' indicates a specific Part B service that may be impacted by policy related to the disaster."

For the most part, agencies seem to have been well prepared for the storms. Publicly traded national chain Amedisys Inc. has fully reopened its Baton Rouge corporate headquarters and nine field offices. As of Sept. 8, three field offices were still experiencing "communication connectivity" issues, the company said. Two of them were operating out of the headquarters office.

Agencies were admitting patients and using pen and paper instead of computer records while electricity and phones were out, HCLA forum participants reported.

Note: Links to public health and safety information are at http://www.hhs.gov/hurricane. CMS' hurricane information, including exemption information for COPs and other regulations, is at www.cms.hhs.gov/Emergency/02_Hurricanes.asp.