Home Health & Hospice Week

Small providers will bear the brunt of the new rule's impact, expert predicts. Home health agencies are headed for a spot between a rock and a hard place if the proposed rule on physician face-to-face encounters becomes final as is. The rule fails to make clear what happens if the patient can't get in to see the physician in the required timeframe (see related story, this page). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services does say in the proposed rule that "if the patient's certifying physician did not document that a face-to-face encounter occurred ... the services would not qualify for payment under the Medicare program." But consultant Pam Warmack with Clinic Connections in Ruston, La. wonders if that means that agencies have to discharge patients if they don't make the two-week cut-off for the visit.  Despite what CMS believes, the home care patients need the visits," she stresses. "Some [...]