Home Health & Hospice Week

FISS update changes the way you enter RTP corrections. If you're having problems fixing your returned Medicare claims, you'd better check out the new protocol for claims corrections.
 
A Fiscal Intermediary Shared System release has changed the way you should make corrections to revenue code lines on claims that have been returned to provider (RTP'd), regional home health intermediary Cahaba GBA says in a Sept. 7 posting to its Web site.

Instead of typing over incorrect information on a revenue code line, you need to delete the incorrect line and re-key the correct information, Cahaba instructs.
 
To add correct information, you must "re-key the corrected information below the 0001 Total Charges line and then press the HOME key on your keyboard," RHHI Palmetto GBA explains in a Sept. 8 posting to its site. Then you must delete the incorrect information by keying the letter "d" anywhere on the erroneous revenue code field and pressing the HOME key on your keyboard.
 
More details are at www.palmettogba.com and www.iamedicare.com/Provider/newsroom/whatsnew/20050907_rtp.htm.  • The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has received from a contractor a draft proposal on applying business and product-quality standards to durable medical equipment suppliers, the agency said in its recent Open Door Forum on power mobility equipment (see story, p. 260). The agency will hold an Open Door Forum on the standards proposal Sept. 26. The proposal is online at www.cms.hhs.gov/suppliers/dme pos/compbid/default.asp.  • Airlines would have to provide free medical oxygen to passengers in need under a new rule proposed by the Department of Transportation. Published in the Sept. 7 Federal Register, the rule would modify the Air Carrier Access Act of 1986, which prohibits discrimination in airline service based on disability.
 
Carriers are not currently required to provide oxygen to passengers, and those that do usually charge a fee that can be "prohibitively expensive," according to the DOT. One study cited by the agency said the costs for supplied oxygen range between $64 and $1,500 per trip.
 
The rule would also require all airlines except for air taxis to test ventilators, respirators, continuous positive airway pressure devices and certain portable oxygen concentrators to ensure they don't cause electromagnetic interference with aircraft navigation and communications equipment. Passengers would be allowed to use devices that can be safely operated on board. The proposed rule and comments are at http://dms.dot.gov, docket number OST-2005-22298.  • Louisville, KY-based HealthEssentials Solutions Inc. is paying $1.85 million to settle False Claims Act fraud charges first brought by three different whistleblower lawsuits in 2003 and 2004.
 
To obtain the $1.85 million, the company that is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy is selling its home care subsidiaries, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Kentucky says in [...]