Home Health & Hospice Week

The countdown to the final rule begins. The proposed face-to-face hospice encounter rule stirs up a wide range of questions and concerns. And hospice providers gave voice to them during listening sessions conducted by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association. More than 750 hospice locations dialed in to three calls during late July and early August, says NHPCO's Judi Lund Person. They shared eight main areas of concern. 1. How will the new face-to-face encounter attestation and certification mesh with the existing documentation? Can the visit documentation and brief narrative be combined? 2. Will the new face-to-face encounter be a billable visit? Is there something in the regulations that says it can never be billed? If the physician or nurse practitioner conducting the visit is also providing necessary medical care, can the face-to-face visit be combined with this billable visit? If the face-to-face visit isn't billable, how does the [...]