Home Health & Hospice Week

Get ready for some Medicare enrollment-related duties to make a comeback in October.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “will resume some provider enrollment activities that were paused during the COVID-19 public health emergency,” CMS says in a message to providers. That includes revalidation, application fees, and fingerprint-based criminal background checks.

How it will work: “CMS will be resuming … revalidation activities in a phased approach for existing providers and suppliers that missed their revalidation due date during the PHE,” CMS explains in a recently issued frequently asked question set on enrollment relief. “Revalidation letters will be sent in October 2021 with due dates in early 2022.”

Home health agencies may recall that “fingerprint-based background checks are generally completed on people with a 5 percent or greater ownership interest in a provider or supplier that falls under the high risk category,” which includes HHAs, CMS says in the FAQs. “A 5 percent or greater owner includes any person that has any partnership interest (general or limited) in a high risk provider or supplier.”

There are exceptions to all of these requirement resumptions for providers that received temporary billing privileges through the Medicare enrollment hotlines, CMS notes in the FAQs at www.cms.gov/files/document/provider-enrollment-relief-faqs-covid-19.pdf.