Home Health & Hospice Week

The hospital referral regulation wasn't the only home health entry in the Centers forMedicare & Medicaid Services' Semiannual Regulatory Agenda. Other items include: COPs. It should come as no surprise that CMS has pushed back publication of the home health agency conditions of participation again. The COPs have languished in regulatory purgatory for years. CMS delays the proposed COPrule to February 2005. Another proposed rule is required because so much time has elapsed since the first proposal in March 1997. But the National Association for Home Care &Hospice says HHAs may be in for a shock -- a CMS official told the association the agency actually plans to issue the COPs ahead of the agenda schedule. "There are high hopes" the reg will be out before the February due date, says NAHC's William Dombi. However, CMS has pushed back to November 2006 the regulation making OASIS electronic reporting a COP. PPS Update. Final action on the prospective payment system changes proposed last month is due in October (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIII, No. 21). Major changes include the methodology used to calculate outlier payments and switching rate updates to a calendar year start.