Home Health & Hospice Week

Question: If you teach a patient with heart failure what to do when she develops signs of failure, she calls the physician as you instructed, and she sees her doc the next day, can you get credit for a physician contact in M1510 (response 1)? Answer: No, says the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in its latest response to OASIS C questions submitted by industry representatives. The home health agency can mark response 3 (Implemented physician-ordered patient-specific established parameters for treatment) and response 4 (Patient education or other clinical interventions), CMS says in response to the question submitted by Fazzi Associates. But it can't mark response 1 for a few reasons, according to the Q&A posted on the National Association for Home Care & Hospice's Web site. First, the patient contacted the physician herself, not agency personnel, CMS notes. Second, response 1 requires a same-day response from the physician and [...]