Home Health & Hospice Week

This time, the feds take aim at support surfaces. You'll see more medical review for pressure reducing support surfaces if a federal watchdog gets its way. Inappropriate Medicare payments still abound for pressure reducing support surfaces, says a new report from the HHS Office of Inspector General. They amounted to about $33 million for these items during the first half of 2007 alone. Background: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services categorizes support surfaces into three groups based on the complexity of their features and Group 2 is the largest, the OIG notes in a new report. The OIG found that 80 percent of group 2 support surface claims did not meet Medicare's clinical coverage requirements. And 33 percent of claims did not meet supplier documentation requirements. Over three-quarters of the claims that did not meet supplier documentation requirements also did not meet Medicare's clinical coverage requirements. The review also [...]