Home Health & Hospice Week

One more piece of the ICD-10 puzzle is now in place. The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services has issued instructions on how home care providers should assign diagnosis codes when the claims span the Oct. 1, 2013 implementation date for the new ICD-10 coding system. Home health agencies can use either ICD-9 or ICD-10 diagnosis codes on their RAPs, but the final claim must contain an ICD-10 code if the episode ends on or after Oct. 1, 2013, CMS explains in Aug. 19 Transmittal No. 950 (CR 7492). Wrinkle: HHAs can "use the payment group code derived from ICD-9 codes on claims which span 10/1/2013," CMS tells its contractors in the transmittal. But those claims still must list ICD- 10 codes. For outpatient home health claims, providers must split claims on the Oct. 1 date so they use all ICD-9 (before Oct. 1) or all ICD-10 (Oct. 1 and [...]