Home Health & Hospice Week

Start training your staff ASAP, expert says.

Home health agencies won’t enjoy their reprieve from the new home health advance beneficiary notices too much longer.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a revised ABN with a notice in the June 23 Federal Register. CMS will require HHAs to use the new ABN by Sept.1, the agency says in new instructions.

But CMS encourages providers to use the new ABN even before the deadline. “We urge [HHAs] to begin using the new form on July 1, 2006, or as soon as possible after that date,” the instructions say.

Tip: Between July 1 and Sept. 1, HHAs can use either the old or new notice and still be in compliance.

The revised forms and instructions come on the heels of litigation from The Center for Medicare Advocacy, the advocates representing the beneficiaries in the lawsuit that sparked the new ABNs. The Center asked a Connecticut federal court to require CMS and providers to use the formerly proposed HHABN by July 1 (see Eli’s HCW, Vol. XV, No. 23).

On hold: The government countered that request with a filing asking the court to give the feds until August to respond to the request, explains CMA attorney Gill Deford.

For CMS, having a firm deadline set for the ABN should help sway the court to its side, expects attorney Robert Markette Jr. with Gilliland Markette & Milligan in Indianapolis. Also, arguments that providers are entitled to other rights under federal law, namely the right to comment on the new forms under the Paperwork Reduction Act, may be persuasive.

But beneficiaries don’t trust CMS to stick to its ABN deadline of Sept. 1, Deford tells Eli. The agency has failed to hit numerous deadlines along the ABN journey. “Maybe they’ll comply with it, maybe they won’t,” he observes.

That means more litigation in the case could be ahead, depending on the ABN status, Deford confirms.

Forecast: But providers can expect the Sept. 1 ABN deadline to stick this time around, unlike the June 1 deadline that CMS postponed at the last minute, Markette predicts.

That’s despite the widespread confusion still surrounding the new forms, notes Burtonsville, MD-based health care attorney Elizabeth Hogue. “There are major issues that are still not clear such as when the new HHABN is to be used and when to use various options,” Hogue says. “In other words, the basics.”

Doubts linger: And the list of unsettled questions continues. For example, agencies want [...]