Home Health & Hospice Week

Be ready to back up your request for a Notice of Election timely filing exception if another hospice hasn't terminated its benefit period.

Reminder: "When the receipt date on your NOE is more than 5 days after the admit date, your NOE is considered to be untimely," HHH Medicare Administrative Contractor CGS explains in an April 10 post to its website. "This means that those days, from admission to the day before the NOE was received, are not payable by Medicare." Hospices may file an exception request in certain circumstances, including when another hospice hasn't discharged the patient.

However, your exception request won't be automatically granted, CGS warns. You must "submit a dated screenprint of the beneficiary's eligibility record showing the open benefit period. In addition, any documentation to support your contact with, or attempts to contact, the prior hospice may also support the exceptional circumstance."

Plus: "In these cases, your documentation must show that the NOE was submitted timely, and subsequently RTPd or rejected because of the open hospice benefit period," CGS says. "If, upon review, CGS determines that the NOE was not initially submitted timely, the exception may not be granted."

More info is at www.cgsmedicare.com/hhh/pubs/news/2018/0418/cope7220.html.