Home Health & Hospice Week
Non-Hospice Palliative Care Pressures Traditional Providers
The rise of palliative care in non-hospice settings is tightening traditional hospice programs’ budgets.
For example: Hospice Buffalo in New York is trimming 17 FTE positions due to reduced utilization, reports The Buffalo News. And since December the organization has let the equivalent of 38 full-time workers leave without replacing them.
More patients are using end-of-life services provided by hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities, who continue to refer patients to traditional hospice, but do so when the patients are closer to death.
"We’ve gone from a period where, five years ago, people didn’t know what palliative care was to, now, everybody’s offering their own version of it," Dr. Christopher Kerr, Hospice Buffalo’s chief medical officer and acting interim CEO, tells the newspaper.
Kerr says the other institutions that offer palliative care don’t offer the full range of services provided by Hospice Buffalo, such as 13 months of follow-up bereavement support for survivors.
Home Health & Hospice Week
- Regulations:
Say Goodbye To One Home Health Claim Type
Plus: Revised OASIS-C should be unveiled soon. Medicare is making a claim format change to [...] - Hospice:
Comply With Hospice Diagnosis Coding Changes Now, CMS Says
Hospices seek clarification on diagnosis coding provisions in proposed rule. The hospice industry is still [...] - Fraud & Abuse:
Home Care Features In Recent Fraud Takedown
Ill gotten gains go to buy luxury cars. The reimbursement your agency earns may go [...] - Referrals:
Help Physicians Get Home Care Coding Right
Lean on 99341-99350 and POS 12 for these visits, experts say. Whether it’s your referral [...] - Industry Note:
Get Ready To Add These Questions To Hospice Intake
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Face-To-Face Required For Initial Home Care Episodes Only, Contractor Reminds Providers
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HHS Fails To Follow Up On Concurrent Care Demo Required By Affordable Care Act
Medicare is falling behind on testing curative care for beneficiaries, report Politico and Kaiser Health [...] - Industry Note:
Info On DME Restrictions Coming To Your Patients
Your patients and referral sources soon may be getting letters informing them about restrictions on [...] - Industry Note:
Watch Out For Duplicate Remittance Advices
A Medicare claims system glitch means you’ll be seeing a slew of duplicate remittance advices [...] - Industry Note:
Keep Tabs On New Thresholds For Appeals
Don’t forget that the amount in controversy levels have ticked up this year, reminds HHH [...] - Industry Note:
Non-Hospice Palliative Care Pressures Traditional Providers
The rise of palliative care in non-hospice settings is tightening traditional hospice programs’ budgets. For [...] - Industry Note:
Chain Reports Six-Figure Loss In Latest Quarter
LHC Group Inc. was the only "big four" publicly traded home care chain to increase [...] - Industry Note:
Payroll Employee Soaks Hospice For $1.6 Million
Keep a close eye on your administrative employees, or you could find yourself in the [...]
