Home Health & Hospice Week

You still have a few weeks to submit comments.

If you submit a home office cost statement, take heed that a new form takes effect for cost reporting periods beginning this month and after.

“Each contractor servicing a provider in a chain must be furnished with a detailed Home Office Cost Statement as a basis for reimbursing the provider for cost allocations from a home office or chain organization,” reminds consulting firm The Health Group in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Do this: “The heightened use of cost report information for rate-setting purposes has caused a renewed focus on home office and related party costs,” The Health Group cautions in its electronic newsletter. “We encourage chains to establish home office cost organizations for purposes of increasing the accuracy of cost report submissions.”

While the form’s effective date is Oct. 1, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is taking comments on it until Nov. 2, 2019. Instructions on submitting comments are in the Federal Register notice at www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2019-09-12/pdf/2019-19711.pdf and the form and supporting documents are at www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/PaperworkReductionActof1995/PRA-Listing-Items/CMS-287-19.html.

Gray area: “CMS still has not clearly drawn a line in the sand to distinguish between a ‘home office’ versus a non-home office related party,” cost report expert Dave Macke with Von Lehman & Co. tells the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.