Home Health & Hospice Week

Stay tuned for ‘companion guide’ for NOE transmissions.

Hospices’ billing headaches related to late Notices of Election might finally be eased by a new Medicare directive.

The Medicare system will accept electronic transmission of NOEs through the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) starting Jan. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says in a transmittal released July 27.

Now: “Currently, hospices may only submit NOEs using DDE or paper claim submissions,” CMS notes in CR 10067.

Then: Hospices can submit NOEs starting in the new year, but it may take some ramp-up.

“Medicare contractors and hospices may develop trading partner agreements to exchange NOE and related transaction data using a non-standard implementation of the 837I transaction. Medicare will develop a companion guide for NOE transmissions,” CMS says in the transmittal. “This guide will provide hospices instructions for how to complete data elements that are required by the 837I transaction but are not required by an NOE. Hospices may voluntarily agree to adopt the companion guide and submit nonstandard 837I transactions.”

Hospices have been asking CMS for an electronic NOE submission process since NOEs past the five-day submission deadline have been impacting claims. CMS implemented the five-day deadline in November 2014.

At the April 2016 March on Washington conference held by the National Association for Home Care & Hospice, CMS Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare Sean Cavanaugh indicated the agency would work on the issue (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXV, No. 15).

See the transmittal at www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Transmittals/2017Downloads/R3813CP.pdf.