Home Health & Hospice Week
Use Hospital Pay Change As Relationship-Builder
Now's the time to strengthen your relationships with hospitals, thanks to the payment change taking effect Oct. 1. Starting next month, hospitals' DRG payments could be reduced up to 1 percent by their readmissions, notes consulting firm BKD. That re-duction will increase to 2 percent in fiscal year 2014 and 4 percent the year after. Right now the reductions will affect three DRGs: Acute Myocardial Infarction, Heart Failure, and Pneumonia. The conditions affected will expand to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Coronary Artery Bypass Graft, Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty, and Other Vascular Conditions in 2015, BKD adds. CMS expects to strip about $260 million from nearly 2,000 hospitals' payments in 2013, BKD notes. Hospitals looking to improve their readmission rates may be eager to work with post-acute care providers like HHAs to do so, the consulting firm advises.
Home Health & Hospice Week
- Therapy:
'Close To' Elimination Will Wreak Havoc On Home Health Therapy
Drop the proposal for specific visit ranges, commenters urge CMS.Scheduling for therapy reassessments in multi-discipline [...] - Regulations:
Therapy Visit Coverage At Stake In Final Rule
What happens if therapists miss a reassessment time point? Home health agencies may not gain [...] - Hospice:
Sidestep Hospice Cert Pitfalls With These 4 Tips
Pointer: Use your own docs to persuade colleagues to improve documentation.So often for hospice patients, [...] - Medical Review:
Step Up Your Hospice Cert Education Efforts
Tip: Your physicians are a critical tool.Certification errors are topping the list for hospices' claims [...] - Industry Note:
Revisit Your Record Retention Policy Or Risk Yanked Billing Privileges
Medicare ups the retention period to 7 years.The feds may have given you a motivating [...] - Industry Note:
Medicare Issues Therapy Cap Letters To Home Health Patients
If you furnish therapy only under home health, you probably thought the Part B therapy [...] - Industry Note:
Sequestration Pay Cut Looms
As the Jan. 1 deadline for sequestration cuts approaches, the health care industry's heavy hitters [...] - Industry Note:
Discipline Matching Not Necessary For F2F
Obtaining face-to-face documentation from referring physicians is hard enough -- don't send the F2F documentation back [...] - Industry Note:
Claims System Fix Solves Remittance Advice Problem
A Sept. 4 fix to the Medicare claims system has cleared up one problem encountered [...] - Industry Note:
Use Hospital Pay Change As Relationship-Builder
Now's the time to strengthen your relationships with hospitals, thanks to the payment change taking [...] - Industry Note:
Wait For Licenses Stretches In Commonwealth
Virginia may have ended its moratorium on new HHA licenses, but that doesn't mean new [...] - Industry Note:
Beware Employees With Sticky Fingers
Reimbursement and compliance problems aren't the only threats to your cash. Keep a close eye [...] - Industry Note:
Doc, Owners, RN Indicted In Detroit Fraud Scheme
Home care-related indictments continue to come down in the Detroit area. This time, the feds [...] - Reader Question:
Make Sure An MSW Is Supervising Social Work Assistants
Tip: Consult your state regs for exact documentation requirements.Question: "I thought only a LMSW could [...]
