Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Note:

A/B Shift Error Requires Adjustments

Don’t let an administrative glitch confuse your billing efforts.

The problem: The allocation of home health agency payments between Medicare Part A and Part B, which does not affect payments to agencies, did not work on about 9,000 claims, reports HHH Medicare Administrative Contractor Palmetto GBA on its website. “The shift of payment for home health claims was not working as designed,” the MAC explains. “The system was designed that once the final payment for an episode is calculated, the Medicare claims processing systems will determine whether the claim should be paid from the Medicare Part A or Part B trust fund.” The shift occurs only on final claims, not requests for anticipated payment.

The solution: “Palmetto GBA is adjusting the approximately 9,000 claims that did not have the shift occur, but should have,” the MAC informs providers. “The purpose of the adjustments is to shift the payment fund value codes from A to B (or vice versa).”

How you can tell: You can identify when a claim has been adjusted when “the Type of Bill (TOB) for the adjustments is 32G and the remarks … state ‘A/B SHIFT,’” Palmetto explains. The MAC expects to wrap up the adjustments in 90 days.

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