Home Health & Hospice Week

Under new rule, some physicians could report F2F encounters like NPPs. The face-to-face physician encounter requirement is full of unnecessary burdens for home health agencies, but one of those may get lifted starting next year. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposes to allow certain physicians who perform the F2F encounter to report their findings to the certifying physician, just like non-physician practitioners currently are allowed to do under F2F regulations. CMS officials have previously remarked informally that such a change is precluded by the language in the Affordable Care Act law that enacted the F2F requirement. But the agency has changed its tune in the prospective payment system proposed rule for 2012, which is scheduled for publication in the July 12 Federal Register. "For patients admitted to home health following discharge from an acute or post-acute stay, the statutory language contains an unintentional gap in that it does [...]