Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Notes:

CMS Clarifies: SIA Payments Apply Only To End Of Stay

Hospices may have a lot of confusion about their new billing requirements under payment reform that takes place Jan. 1, but CMS has cleared up at least one misconception.

Wrong: On Aug. 19, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services posted Change Request 9201 and a related MLN Matters article outlining hospices’ new billing requirements under the forthcoming system (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIV, No. 30). The MLN Matters article erroneously stated that Service Intensity Add-on (SIA) payments would apply to the first two days of a hospice stay.

Right: CMS has revised the article “to remove an incorrect phrase regarding add-on payments in the first two days of hospice care,” CMS says in the new article. “There are no Service Intensity Add-On payments during the first two days of admission.”

See the revised article at www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNMattersArticles/Downloads/MM9201.pdf.

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