Home Health & Hospice Week

If not, you could be risking payment suspension.

You’ll soon receive a cost report reminder letter if, like the majority of providers, your cost report year ends with the calendar year.

Medicare cost reports for the period ending Dec. 31, 2018, are due May 31, 2019, HHH Medicare Administrative Contractor Palmetto GBA points out in a new post on its website. It started sending letters the week of April 9.

“If your cost report is not filed in a timely manner, payments will be suspended until your cost report is filed and determined to be acceptable, which can take up to 30 days,” Palmetto warns. “We encourage you to file your cost report early so that any issues can be resolved and payment suspension can be avoided.”

Such as: “Recent changes to Part 2 of the CMS Provider Reimbursement Manual specify that both HHA (Chapter 17 at 3203.1) and hospice (Chapter 38 at 4306.2) cost reports must be signed by one of two possible personnel — either the Chief Financial Officer or the Administrator,” points out the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. That means “no longer can any other agency official or board member sign the cost report. HHAs and hospices must ensure that they are in compliance with this requirement,” NAHC stresses in its member newsletter.

Palmetto offers these additional tips for cost report filing:

• If you haven’t jumped on the electronic filing bandwagon with MCReF as Medicare has urged, be sure to send files on a disk “in their native format.” If sending cost reports for multiple providers, submit a separate disk for each report.
• Include a bad debt log in Excel format that agrees to the amount reported on worksheet E, Part A.
• Do not submit the formerly required Cost Report Questionnaire (CMS Form 339). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services no longer requires the form for HHAs and hospices because the cost report forms now include the same questions.
• Double-check to make sure you avoid simple mistakes such as listing the wrong provider number or fiscal year. And make sure signatures are in blue ink.

Plus: Make sure your MAC has your correct contact information, NAHC advises. “In order to ensure that problems are addressed timely, your MAC must have up-to-date information on the most appropriate contact person for Audit and Reimbursement issues,” the trade group says.