Home Health & Hospice Week

• Don't expect the Medicare claims system to make your claims tracking any easier. The system will sometimes pay "later" home health prospective payment system episodes as lower-payingearly episodes, even when they aren't, explains Medicare contractor NHIC, which in turn contracts with National Government Services for regional home health intermediary services.

"There are times when the timing of episode claim submission may conflict with correction/submission of earlier billed episodes," NHIC says in a summary of its latest Ask The Contractor (ACT) meeting. "When this happens, the later episodes

may not originally pay as later episodes." It should all come out right in the end, however, NHIC says. "FISS will eventually update claims based on the Common Working File (CWF) -- these claims will show in FISS as a 3XG bill type."