Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Notes:

'Confined To Home' Definition Hits The Books -- Again

Nearly three years later, CMS’s regs are catching up with its rulemaking. In the 2012 Home Health Prospective Payment System final rule published in fall 2011, CMS finalized a proposal to clarify the “confined to the home” definition. The new manual language “more accurately reflect(s) the definition as articulated … [in] the Social Security Act,” the agency says in Change Request 8818.

Background: In October 2013, CMS issued CR 8444 to clarify the definition in chapter 2 of the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, the National Asso-ciation for Home Care & Hospice notes. Now change request 8818 also updates chapter 15 of the Policy Manual to reflect the clarification of “confined to the home” definition.

The chapter 15 revision, which takes effect Sept. 2, is in the transmittal online at www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Transmittals/Downloads/R192BP.pdf.

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