Home Health & Hospice Week
Give CMS Your 2 Cents On AOs
Do you think there’s something shady about accrediting organizations and the financial relationships they have with the providers they oversee? If so, now’s the time to speak up. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued a Request for Information comment soliciation notice on the topic. “Some AOs provide consulting services to the facilities they monitor and charge fees for these services,” CMS notes in a release. The new RFI “asks for public input on whether these consulting fees create conflicts of interest, as the same entity is both consulting for a given facility and monitoring whether that facility is accredited to participate in Medicare,” it continues. “We are concerned that the practice of offering both accrediting and consulting services — and the financial relationships involved in this work — may undermine the integrity of accrediting organizations and erode the public’s trust,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma says in the release. “Our data shows that state-level audits of healthcare facilities are uncovering serious issues that AOs have missed, leading to high ‘disparity rates’ between the two reviews.” More info and instructions on submitting comments are in the notice published in the Dec. 20 Federal Register at www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2018-12-20/pdf/2018-27506.pdf.
Home Health & Hospice Week
- Targeted Probe & Educate:
Medical Necessity Ranks In Next Tier Of TPE Denials
You’ve seen the top denial reasons, now look at the rest. Santa shouldn’t be the [...] - Medical Review:
Review Choice Demo Exchanges One Medical Review Burden For Another
Here’s why you didn’t see these key states in Palmetto’s TPE results. Where are some [...] - Payment:
Medicare Margin Climbs In Latest Reckoning
MedPAC readies yet another steep rate-cut recommendation. Medicare Payment Advisory Commission officials seem to think [...] - Hospice:
MedPAC Paves Way For Hospice Cut Recommendation
Hospice spending surpasses home health. A profit margin that keeps creeping up is one factor [...] - Audits:
Note These New Hospice-Related RAC Targets
Medicare cracks down on hospice bundling. Unlike home health agencies, hospices don’t have any Recovery [...] - Reimbursement:
Add Denied Claims Check-In To Your End-Of-Year To-Do List
Tip: Encrypt your emailed documentation per HIPAA, CERT contractor says. It may not be as [...] - Industry Note:
Know Corrective Action Plan Ins And Outs For RAP Trouble
Warning: Deadline is tight to submit CAP. If your RAP practices have gotten sloppy, you’d [...] - Industry Note:
Claims With Overlapping Dates Cause Confusion
If you’re running into U5181 claims returns and can’t figure out why, you may want [...] - Industry Note:
Give CMS Your 2 Cents On AOs
Do you think there’s something shady about accrediting organizations and the financial relationships they have [...] - Industry Note:
IRS Increases Mileage Rate By 3.5 Cents
Providers that have travel reimbursement policies linked to the Internal Revenue Service mileage rate should [...] - Industry Note:
MAC Look-up Tools Switch Entirely To MBIs
Just because you get an MBI number for a beneficiary from your MAC’s system, doesn’t [...] - Industry Note:
Hurricane Waivers Come To An End
Home care providers in the Southeast impacted by this fall’s hurricanes should take note that [...] - Industry Note:
Whistleblowers Get Big Chunk Of $5.9M Hospice Settlement
Two former hospice employees will rake in $1.1 million of the $5.9 million settlement nine [...] - Industry Note:
LHC-Lifepoint Venture Makes Buys In 2 States
A joint venture by LHC Group and LifePoint Health have purchased and will share share [...] - Industry Note:
Share HIPAA Load-Lightening Suggestions With The Feds
You have until Feb. 11 to give the feds a piece of your mind on [...]
