Home Health & Hospice Week
Keep Up With Latest Emergency Preparedness Guidance
You may feel like you’ve been living out your emergency preparedness plan for the past year, but you still need to keep up with EP-related survey requirements. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently issued its Updated Guidance for Emergency Preparedness- Appendix Z of the State Operations Manual (SOM), which includes provisions from two final rules on EP that CMS published in September 2019, according to a letter to state survey agencies. CMS also added “‘emerging infectious diseases’ to the definition of all-hazards approach in Appendix Z” in February 2019, the agency notes in letter QSO-21-15-ALL. “In light of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health emergency (PHE), CMS is expanding the Emergency Preparedness Interpretive Guidelines to further expand on best practices, lessons learned, and planning considerations for EIDs,” the letter says. Detail: In the document, “CMS guides that the communication plan should include all physicians and allowed practitioners involved in the patient’s care as well as any additional practitioners at [home health agencies] to reflect the coordinated, interdisciplinary approach to care,” points out the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its member newsletter. The 113-page survey memo is at https://www.cms.gov/files/document/qso-21-15-all.pdf.
Home Health & Hospice Week
- Oasis:
Burdensome OASIS-E Changes Are Barreling Toward HHAs
Implementation will wait for COVID PHE’s end, CMS confirms. The OASIS-E deadline is still at [...] - Assessment:
Get Ready To Onboard These New OASIS Items
Your staff will need to get comfortable collecting Social Determinants of Health data. You’ve got [...] - Know Your Facts:
Watch For Diagnosis Coding Crackdown Ahead For Hospices
Plus: For-profit hospices continue to proliferate, to CMS’ apparent chagrin. Hospices have been able to [...] - Fraud & Abuse:
HH, Hospice Operations Manager Must Repay $4.7 Million
Kickbacks and sham medical directorships feature in egregious case. You don’t have to be an [...] - Labor Law:
OSHA COVID-19 Guidance About To Go From Advisory To Mandatory
Emergency temporary standard for COVID-19 in final stages of approval. As expected by many observers, [...] - Industry Notes:
HHS Puts Its Muscle Behind Vaccination Boosting Effort
VNA starts distributing vaccinations in major Texas city. Now that COVID vaccinations are becoming widely [...] - Industry Notes:
Beware CBSA/FIPS Claims System Error
A claims system glitch is giving home health agencies more work to obtain their rightful [...] - Industry Notes:
Keep Up With Latest Emergency Preparedness Guidance
You may feel like you’ve been living out your emergency preparedness plan for the past [...] - Industry Notes:
CMS Administrator Nom Still Stalled
More than three months into the Biden administration during a global pandemic, the President’s nominee [...] - Industry Notes:
Duplication Glitch Leads To Bogus Rejections For PCR Requests
Stand by for a solution to a new claims processing error in the Review Choice [...] - Industry Notes:
Telehealth Bill Aims To Help HHAs
Advocates for home health agencies are try, trying again to gain some equity regarding telehealth. [...] - Industry Notes:
Humana, Encompass Make Buys
The mergers and acquisition market continues to hum. Humana Inc. has agreed to acquire the [...] - Industry Notes:
Excluded Therapist Costs Agency
If you need a reminder of why you must check the HHS Office of Inspector [...]
