Home Health & Hospice Week

Don’t expect major — or any — changes.

You can mitigate or maybe even prevent rebalancing rate cuts under the new cost report form — but it will take a little effort.

Follow this advice from cost report expert Dave Macke with VonLehman & Co. in Fort Wright, Kentucky, to help prepare for the form and retain your rightful reimbursement:

1. Treat the form as final now. While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services technically is taking comments on the new home health cost report form and instructions until March 25, HHAs should proceed as if the new report is final and begin collecting required data accordingly, if they haven’t already.CMS is unlikely to make any major changes (nor minor ones, for that matter) at this point.

“Don’t put it off,” Macke urges.

2. Start gathering retroactive data. In addition to changing your data collection practices going forward, you should go back to the beginning of your fiscal year and gather the needed data from your financial statements, Macke advises.

If you are missing data from contractors, go back and ask them for it, Macke urges. For example, you may ask a contract therapy vendor for data broken down by time and by discipline.

3. Consider changing your financial statements. “Let your financial statements do the work for you,” Macke urges. For example, if you currently just see one lump sum for “labor” on your statements, change them so they are broken down by discipline. Managers can use the information for a variety of management purposes, he adds.