Home Health & Hospice Week

CMS is reorganizing its hospice discharge coding this July 1, but you also need to make sure you are correctly coding discharges now. The agency emphasizes current hospice discharge rules, which apply to claims with dates of service Jan. 1, 2012 or later, in a newly revised MLN Matters article. Remember: When the beneficiary transfers, hospices should use discharge code 50 or 51 without occurrence code 42. "This discharge claim does not terminate the beneficiary's current hospice benefit period," CMS explains in the MLN Matters article. The MLN Matters article is at www.cms.gov/MLNMattersArticles/Downloads/MM7473.pdf and the transmittal it's based on is at www.cms.gov/Transmittals/downloads/R2258CP.pdf.