Home Health & Hospice Week

It looks to be a rocky year for home health cost report data.

Why? The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services significantly revised the cost report form for years ending in 2020 and later, points out consulting firm The Health Group in Morgantown, West Virginia. “While there are several changes, in addition to adding cost centers, the most significant change is the addition of Worksheet S-3, Part V which attempts to capture average hourly wage information, based on hours, for both employees and independent contractors,” the firm says in its electronic newsletter.

CMS extended cost report deadlines for years ending in most of 2020, due to the COVID-19 public health emergency (see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXX, No. 3). Reports for calendar year-end years are now due in August.

But that won’t help many agencies, which “do not have hours for independent contractors who are paid on a method other than hourly, i.e., per-visit,” The Health Group laments. “Due to the date the changes were finalized, most agencies will incur significant effort to complete the 2020 filing appropriately,” the firm says.

“Agencies need to develop a process for securing hours from independent contractors to report accurate data,” The Health Group urges.