Home Health & Hospice Week

Since you can count it toward M0825, you have to pay for it. Add one more service to the list bundled into the home health prospective payment system: electromagnetic therapy. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services confirmed in April that the newly covered wound therapy counts toward the therapy threshold under PPS (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIII, No. 17). And beginning Oct. 1, HHAs will have to pay for it, CMS reveals in a July 9 transmittal. Starting then, Medicare won't pay therapists separately for G0329 (Electromagnetic tx for ulcers) when a patient is under a home health plan of care. Agencies can count G0329 when calculating therapy visits for OASIS item M0825. CMS updates the list of items and services included in home health consolidated billing every January when the HCPCS codes are updated. But the agency can make other bundling changes on a quarterly basis when necessary, notes the transmittal at www.cms.hhs.gov/manuals/pm_trans/R226CP.pdf. Home health agencies should adopt the newly approved Notice of Medicare Non-Coverage form ASAP, the National Association forHome Care & Hospice urges. NOMNCs are required when a Medicare managed care plan terminates home care services for an enrollee. Regulations require HHAs to deliver the first of the two-step notices (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIII, No. 4). CMS has posted its revised form, which recently secured Office of Management and Budget approval, at www.cms.hhs.gov/healthplans/appeals. Its use for Medicare Advantage patients is required by Aug. 1, NAHC says. New Medicaid waiver actions in two states may increase home care utilization and keep patients at home. Pennsylvania will offer extra help to residents moving from institutions to the community, CMS says in a release. Under new community transition benefits offered through waivers, the state will pay for certain costs such as moving expenses, security deposits, utility set up fees and some essential household items like beds, dishes, chairs and tables. The funds can't go toward rent or entertainment items such as TVs, though. Pennsylvania aims to help 1,500 residents return to the community. The change supports the state's efforts to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court's Olmstead ruling, requiring care in the least restrictive setting possible. And the Department of Health and Human Services has approved adding 500 people to a Texas waiver serving developmentally disabled or mentally retarded residents, HHS says in a release. The waiver currently serves about 8,000 people. Louisiana disability and elderly advocates are back in court over that state's Olmstead compliance. Under a new home care program developed as part of a settlement of an Olmstead-related lawsuit, only 125 residents are being served out of the more than 4,600 who have applied and been found eligible, reports The Advocate of Baton [...]