Home Health & Hospice Week

Brush up on your discharge responsibilities with a new booklet from CMS.

For example: “A physician’s order is not required to discharge the patient unless you have such a policy or it is required by State law,” CMS says in its home health agency discharge information. But “you should document in the patient’s clinical record that the physician was notified of the discharge. You must inform the attending physician that the discharge summary is available and send it to him or her upon request.”

For hospices, “you must obtain a written physician’s discharge order from the Hospice medical director,” CMS explains in the booklet. “If the patient has an attending physician involved in his or her care, this physician should be consulted before discharge. The attending physician’s input and recommendations should be included in the discharge summary.”

More about discharges, including what agencies should include in their discharge summaries, is in the booklet at

www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/Downloads/Discharge-Planning-Booklet-ICN908184.pdf.