Home Health & Hospice Week

Open issues outnumber resolved ones so far.

Home health agencies frustrated by being in the dark on iQIES problems now have a resource to consult for information.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has posted a list of ongoing problems with the Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System that took effect Jan. 1. HHAs have been unable to submit some OASIS files due to a myriad of iQIES glitches, which will eventually lead to rejected claims and potential compliance problems (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XXIX, Nos. 4 and 5).

At press time, CMS had posted a list of 18 “iQIES Known Issues,” showing seven of them as resolved and 11 still open.

But CMS wants to hear about more potential issues out there, says the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. “The iQIES team has pushed out many corrections the past few weeks, but CMS and NAHC are encouraging HHAs to continue to report any issues they encounter to the helpdesk at help@qtso.com so they can be tracked and added to the issues log,” NAHC’s Katie Wehri says on the trade group’s listserv.

Meanwhile, CMS has provided workarounds for some of the open issues.

For example: “Users are getting a ‘-3190 - No match found’ error for modification assessments with different patient information than the original assessment,” the list says. That occurs when any of these fields are different from the original assessment:

• M0040-First (First name),
• M0040-Last (Last name),
• M0064 (Social Security Number),
• M0066 (Birth Date), and
• M0069 (Gender).

Workaround: “Submit the modification assessment with the same patient information as the original assessment. If patient information changes are needed, inactivate the original assessment and submit a new assessment with the patient changes needed,” CMS instructs. “Any assessment submitted after Jan 1, 2020, must include the patient’s MBI rather than HICN. This includes modifications and inactivations.”

Note: The iQIES Known Issues list is at https://iqies.ventera.com.