Home Health & Hospice Week

One HHA's social workers will tap into new drug resource. Are you looking for a way to boost your patient outcomes without boosting your costs as well?

Then you'll want to check out the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' newly enhanced Web site, at www.medicare.gov, on drug discount cards that become available in May.

"Users can get customized results information about the Medicare-approved drug discount cards including the names of cards available to them, the enrollment fees and ways to contact the card programs," the Department of Health and Human Services says in a release. Fees range from nothing to $30. "Starting April 29, users will be able to compare drug prices and find out which pharmacies in their area accept the new Medicare-approved drug discount cards," HHS says.

The law does not require any specific level of discounts for the 48 different cards that will be provided, but HHS says Medicare beneficiaries can expect to obtain price breaks of 10 to 25 percent.

Alacare Home Health and Hospice President John Beard is already making plans to use the new site. "Hopefully, this Web site tool will be a useful resource for (Birmingham, AL-based) Alacare's social workers when they assist our patients," Beard tells Eli.

CMS also is offering a new pamphlet on the discount drug card program through the Web site and by calling 1-800-MEDICARE. Your durable medical equipment regional carrier may change in the blink of an eye -- at least in government terms -- under a new proposal from CMS. In a proposed rule in the March 26 Federal Register, CMS seeks authority to change DMERCs quickly, without time-intensive notice and rulemaking requirements.

The change "would allow us to increase or decrease the number of DMERCs, to change the boundaries of DMERCs based on criteria other than the boundaries of the Common Working File, and to name new contractors to perform statistical analysis or maintain the national supplier clearinghouse," CMS says.

While the agency would like the authority to shake things up quickly, "we are not proposing to reconfigure the DMERC service boundaries at this time," it says. It's already time to be thinking about flu vaccinations for this fall. "To ensure the availability of influenza vaccine for administration early in the Fall of 2004, physicians and providers should begin to order supplies of influenza vaccine immediately," regional home health intermediary Palmetto GBA says in a posting on its Web site. An expected increase in demand and early flu activity last year make ordering now a priority, Palmetto says. Whether the newly covered electromagnetic therapy service for wound care will be bundled into home health PPS, and therefore count toward M0825, is still unclear, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice [...]