Home Health & Hospice Week

One MAC is offering a helping hand when it comes to billing hospice NOEs on time.

Background: In the 2015 final hospice payment rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services put a five-day submission deadline in place for Notices of Election and Termination. The NOEs must be submitted and accepted by the MAC within five days of the effective date of election, or Medi-care won’t cover the days until an NOE is filed (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIII, No. 28).

CGS’s Provider Contact Center “continues to receive questions about these billing requirements,” the MAC says on its website.

For example: “If an NOE is submitted timely (within 5 days after admission), but is subsequently returned for correction (RTPd) and not corrected until after day 5, which date will be used to determine timeliness?” one hospice asked, according to CGS’s Frequently Asked Questions on the topic. “When an NOE is corrected out of the RTP file, it will receive a new receipt date. This new date will be used to determine timely submission of the NOE,” the MAC answers.

Links to the FAQs and multiple other NOE filing resources are at http://cgsmedicare.com/hhh/pubs/news/2015/0615/cope29538.html.