HHAs:
Surprise! Here's Your Unannounced Survey
Published on Fri Dec 21, 2012
Watch out: New ‘extended surveys’ will dig deep into your business. In order to begin handing out those new alternative sanctions, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will start dropping in on your home health agency to perform ambush-style surveys. As part of the alternative sanctions that CMS introduced in the CY2013 Home Health Prospective Payment System final rule, you now have a laundry list of brand-new survey practices to worry about. CMS introduced a myriad of new definitions and requirements for HHA surveys. "Although these definitions are being added to the regulations by the Final Rule, many have been part of longstanding CMS policy," according to the Hall Render Killian Health & Lyman law firm’s blog. CMS will use the survey results "to determine if it will enter into, deny or terminate a provider agreement with an HHA." Working on CMS’s behalf, State Survey Agencies will gauge HHAs’ [...]
