Hospice:
Here's How Providers Can Quickly Certify Hospice Patients' Terminal Illnesses.
Published on Tue Aug 18, 2009
Take the guesswork out of the physician narrative requirement. You have less than one month to comply with the new physician narrative requirement -- but you don't have to go it alone. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services demands that beginning October 1, physicians must include "a brief narrative explanation of the clinical findings that support a life expectancy of [six] months or less" when they certify (or recertify) hospice patients as being terminally ill, according to the final hospice rule published in the August 6 Federal Register. Good news: Regional home health intermediary Cahaba GBA is helping you streamline this potentially headache-inducing process. The RHHI offers this sample document* as a guideline for all hospices to use as they develop policies and procedures for complying with the physician narrative requirement: * Cahaba included a disclaimer that each agency must ensure its certification and recertification forms are correct. View the [...]