Industry Note:
Discharge Hospice Patients When F2F Is Missed
Published on Wed Sep 14, 2011
CMS has put some of its face-to-face billing guidance for hospices in a more official form. CMS has issued an Oct. 7 transmittal explaining how to bill when a hospice patient doesn't receive a required F2F encounter. Key: When a F2F encounter is missed, "hospice must discharge the patient but can readmit once the encounter occurs," CMS instructs. "Use of occurrence span code 77 is not appropriate when a required face-to-face encounter does not occur timely." Transmittal No. 2315 (CR 7478) is at
www.cms.gov/transmittals/downloads/R2316CP.pdf.