Home Health & Hospice Week
F2F Delay Isn't Out Of The Question
How much noise are you willing to make?
Once Jan. 1 passed, many home health agencies figured a delay to enforcement of the new face-to-face physician encounter requirements was off the table. But that’s not necessarily the case.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “has received a number of letters, as well as emails, asking for a delay in the implementation of the new face-to-face medical review policies” and “expressing concerns regarding the ability of home health agencies and physicians to readily comply with the new requirements,” said CMS’s Randy Throndset in the Jan. 14 Open Door Forum for home care providers. Under the new F2F rules, physicians must have documentation of a patient’s homebound status and eligibility in their own medical records, and furnish those records to HHAs.
The National Association for Home Care & Hospice recently urged HHAs to redouble their efforts to secure from CMS a delay of the new F2F requirements (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIV, No. 3).
“CMS appreciates the input that we have received from providers and others, and we continue to review this issue carefully,” Throndset told the forum. “I will say that we expect to provide an an-swer in the near future.”
Bottom line: “Please stay tuned and we’ll be providing that response as soon as we can,” Throndset concluded.
Home Health & Hospice Week
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