Home Health & Hospice Week

Terminated agency stays terminated. Sometimes there are no second chances. High Tech Home Health in Davie, FL has learned that lesson the hard way.

The HHS Departmental Appeals Board has shot down an appeal requesting the DAB to require the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to re-survey the terminated home health agency, according to a decision released last month (Doc. No.: C-05-351, Decision No. CR1482).

CMS terminated High Tech's provider agreement after Florida Agency for Health Care Administration surveyors surveyed the agency in February of 2005 and found it substantially out of compliance with eight conditions of participation.

The laundry list of deficiencies included failing to follow a written plan of care, failing to document verbal orders and failure to have a qualified registered nurse supervising personnel, according to the DAB decision.

After the February survey, High Tech submitted a plan of correction that said it would be in compliance by March 10. When Florida surveyors re-surveyed the agency on March 23, they found the agency still out of compliance with five COPs.

The agency admitted "the March 23 survey caught [it] in a transition phase in both personnel and automation in which [it] was admittedly in non-compliance," the decision noted. High Tech insisted it had corrected the problems by April 8 and needed a new survey.

The DAP sided with CMS, saying no further survey was required and that CMS was within its rights to terminate the provider agreement rather than impose less harsh sanctions as an intermediate step. • You'd better take a hard look at your laptop policies. A stolen laptop is once again creating privacy headaches for a home care provider. A thief took from a nurse's car a laptop computer containing patient information, including home addresses and social security numbers, for 14,000 patients of Allina Hospitals & Clinics OB home care program, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Minneapolis-based Allina is offering free credit monitoring services to its patients, the newspaper reports. The health system doubts the information has been accessed because doing so requires two passwords, a spokesperson told the Tribune. • Palmetto GBA will serve as the competitive bidding contractor for durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies competitive bidding program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced Oct. 22. For more information, go to www.cms.hhs.gov/CompetitiveAcqforDMEPOS/05_CBIC_Contractor.asp. • If your denial codes look unfamiliar, you're not alone. Regional home health intermediary Cahaba GBA implemented new denial codes starting Oct. 1, the RHHI says on its Web site. Cahaba cut the number of codes from 226 to 22 for home health PPS and from 41 to 10 for hospice.

In the new five-digit codes, the first character is always a "5" and the second character is an "H" for HH [...]