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Home Health & Hospice Week

Reader Question:

Beware Claiming Therapy As Unrelated To Hospice

Published on Fri Mar 02, 2012

Reviewers are cracking down on what's considered unrelated to the terminal diagnosis. Question: Will Part B sometimes pay for rehab therapy for a patient on hospice? Answer: "Although it is allowable to provide Part B therapy to hospice patients, I think it's very difficult to meet the Medicare regulatory requirements outside the hospice benefit," says attorney Roshunda Drummond-Dye with the American Physical Therapy Association. Consultant Beth Carpenter says "it's increasingly become hard for medical reviewers who review charts to believe everything isn't related to the hospice diagnosis. For example, if the person has cancer metastasis and breaks a bone, the medical reviewer will say the fracture is related to the medication the person is receiving or the hospice diagnosis," adds Carpenter, with Beth Carpenter and Associates in Lake Barrington, Ill.
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