Home Health & Hospice Week

Trach, wound care codes most affected.  A plethora of new codes will be added to and deleted from the list of supplies that is bundled into the home health prospective payment system in the new year. When supplies codes are placed on the bundling list, suppliers can't obtain payment for those items separately while a patient is under a home health plan of care. Starting in January, 17 codes for wound care dressings will be bundled, mostly for different types of bandages in the A6441 to A6456 range. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services also will add supplies codes for a Chlor-hexidine containing anticeptic (A4248) and an ostomy vent (A4366), and a therapy code for a specific assistive technology assessment (97755), it says in a newly added list to an Oct. 17 One-Time Notification. Also in the changes are 17 ostomy-related items switched from K to A codes, nine switched and added codes for tracheostomy supplies, and wound care and saline code changes. Two of the trach codes were added in error, however, and will be rescinded before the bundling takes effect, CMS said in the Dec. 3 Open Door Forum for home health. The full list is at http://cms.hhs.gov/manuals/pm_trans/R8CP.pdf. Outspoken CMS Administrator Tom Scully has announced his departure from the post, effective Dec. 15. Under Scully's nearly three-year term as head of the agency, CMS changed its name from the Health Care Financing Administration, focused on furnishing patient outcome data to the public, fostered agency openness with vehicles such as Open Door Forums, and launched the fraud-fighting campaign against power wheelchair abuse. Scully hasn't officially announced his post-CMS plans, but is widely expected to take a lucrative lobbying position. Self-directed care proponents have another piece of information in their favor, although home care experts continue to worry that systems in which beneficiaries hire personal care workers directly don't include enough safeguards to ensure the patients' well-being and safety. Researchers at Princeton, NJ-based Mathe-matica Policy Research Inc. found that Arkansas Medicaid enrollees who directed their own personal care services using a cash allowance were more likely to receive the services, and receive them at the level to which they were entitled. Researchers studied Arkansas' self-directed care program, the "Cash & Counseling" demonstration project. And better access to personal care services didn't increase Medicaid budgets, because it kept beneficiaries out of more costly nursing homes, said the study published in the latest issue of Health Affairs. The study is at http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/reprint/hlthaff.w3.566v1.pdf. Wayward health care providers are still getting excluded from Medicare at a rapid clip, with 153 ousted in October. Health care providers should make sure they check both potential hires and current employees against the HHS Office of [...]