Home Health & Hospice Week

Help your docs enroll before accepting their patients, trade group advises. The feds' stance on your referring physicians' PECOS enrollment is far from clear, but home health agencies probably aren't in danger of losing reimbursement for up to 40 percent of their patients. At least that's what industry experts hope after receiving more clarifying information from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. July 6 was the implementation date for the requirement mandating that referring physicians listed on certain Medicare claims -- including those for home health agencies and durable medical equipment suppliers -- be enrolled in the Medicare Provider Enrollment Chain and Ownership System (PECOS). Shortly before that date, CMS issued a cryptic notice saying it was sticking with the July 6 deadline, but not implementing "automatic" rejections of claims without PECOS-enrolled physicians in the ordering/referring physician field (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIX, No. 24, p. 186). "Due to the vague [...]