Home Health & Hospice Week

CIGNA concedes fight in Jurisdiction D.

Noridian Administrative Services expects to transition to the Durable Medical Equipment Medicare Administrative Contractor (DME MAC) for Jurisdic-tion D this fall.

CIGNA Government Services, which contested Noridian's bid to become the region's DME MAC, is now pointing suppliers to Noridian's Web site for more information. "Transition of the workload has begun and will be fully operational around October 2006," concedes CIGNA, which lost out on the bid.

As the DME MAC, Noridian will provide services for Jurisdiction D Medicare beneficiaries and Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) suppliers.

• Non-physician practitioners can't sign a home health plan of care, but they can bill for home health care plan oversight (CPO) services, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says in Transmittal 993, dated June 23. The transmittal stipulates that the NPP who provides CPO does not have to be the same person who signs the Plan of Care, notes the American Association for Homecare.

The policy is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2005, AAH notes. The transmittal is at www.cms.hhs.gov/Transmittals/downloads/R993CP.pdf.

• If you're accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, you should test your emergency generator at least once every 36 months for at least four continuous hours. That new requirement, contained in Revised Standard EC.7.40, is in addition to the current requirement to test emergency generators 12 times each year for 30 continuous minutes, JCAHO says in its Online Bulletin.

The new requirement is effective Jan. 1, 2007, and you must perform the test by July 1, 2007, to be in initial compliance, the Oakbrook Terrace, IL-based accrediting body instructs.

• CMS has revised its OASIS manuals in light of the new reporting regulation that took effect last month (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XV, No. 23).

HHAs should download and print the new Implementation Manual, System User's Guide, OASIS Validation Report Guide, and HAVEN Reference Manual at www.cms.hhs.gov/HomeHealthQualityInits/14_HHQIOASISUserManual.asp, CMS recommends.

CMS plans to issue a revised Chapter 8 of the OASIS User's Manual this summer, the agency says.

• Physicians who supply limited amounts of DME shouldn't be subject to all of the requirements of Medicare's proposed competitive acquisition program for DME. That's the conclusion of the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee in written comments to CMS on the agency's proposed rule on competitive bidding.

"Prohibiting physicians from supplying DME to their own patients might substantially inconvenience beneficiaries--for example, not being able to provide crutches to a beneficiary whose leg has just been placed in a cast," notes MedPAC chair Glenn Hackbarth in the June 28 letter to CMS.

• Hospices trying to use the span code 77 on discharge claims may be in for a delay.

Providers may see these claims in the status/location SM77OC while regional home health intermediary Palmetto GBA tries to figure out a problem with the code, it says on its Web site.

• Hospice Care of Kansas has opened a new office in Salina, MO--its first in the neighboring state. The Wichita-based company has three offices, 360 employees and 650 patients, reports The Wichita Eagle.

• Meanwhile, hospice company Regency Health Care Group more than tripled the number of patients it serves by buying a majority interest in New Beacon Hospice from Baptist Health System and St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham, AL. Combined, the New Beacon and Regency hospices currently serve 800 patients, reports the Birmingham News.

Regency, owned by private equity group EDG Partners, used $25.5 million from private equity firm Allied Capital Corp. to fund the New Beacon acquisition, reports the Birmingham Business Journal.

Regency plans to retain New Beacon's management team and 300 employees. New Beacon has eight offices in Alabama while Regency has seven in South Carolina and Georgia, according to the News.

• Genesis Health System in Davenport, IA is closing its private duty home care unit, Private Care, according to the Quad City Times. Genesis will lay off about 100 workers from there and another unit it's closing, according to the paper.