Home Health & Hospice Week

Expect the payment penalty for early hospital discharges to home health agencies to expand, if the HHS Office of Inspector General gets its way.

The OIG has added the topic to its Work Plan. “We will determine how the hospital transfer policy for early discharges to postacute care (PAC) would financially affect Medicare and hospitals if it were expanded to include all Medicare Severity Diagnosis-Related Groups (MS-DRGs),” the watchdog agency says in the Work Plan item description. “Analysis of Medicare claims data demonstrates significant occurrences of early discharges from hospitals to PAC facilities for MS-DRGs that are not currently subject to the PAC transfer payment policy.”

The OIG’s proposed audit “would provide CMS with a more updated analysis of the financial impact that an expanded hospital-to-PAC transfer payment policy (i.e., all MS-DRGs) would have on Medicare and hospitals,” the OIG says at www.oig.hhs.gov/reports-and-publications/workplan/summary/wp-summary-0000585.asp.