Home Health & Hospice Week

Quality, efficiency expected to be focus points. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services top spot has been vacant for three years, but now President Obama is prepared to nominate a CMS Administrator. Obama will put forward Dr.Donald Berwick, a pediatrics and health policy professor at Harvard and head of the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Berwick has focused on increasing quality of care and efficiency, reports The New York Times. Patient safety has been a major goal of his, says The Wall Street Journal. The National Association of Independent Medical Equipment Suppliers is cautiously optimistic. "NAIMES views this appointment as good for the DME industry," the trade group says in a message to members. • A payment system glitch is holding up your reimbursement for hospice claims with physician kidney disease education codes. "Claims with 81X and 82X Types of Bills (TOBs) and ... HCPCS Code G0420 or G0421, [...]