Home Health & Hospice Week

PPS proposed rule and illegal alien patients also addressed in latest Open Door Forum. Do you know when to require your therapists to conduct reassessments under the new rule that took effect this year? If you interpret the requirement too tightly, you'll decrease your productivity and increase your scheduling hassles for no reason. And if you interpret it too loosely, you're risking your reimbursement and your compliance record. Home health agencies continue to be confused about the timeframes for the therapy reassessments that were required as of April 1, said a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services official in the Aug. 17 home health Open Door Forum. A provision meant to give HHAs more flexibility with timing of the reassessments is a main culprit, said CMS's Lori Anderson. Under last year's final prospective payment system rule, HHAs can use a relaxed timeframe for conducting therapy reassessments for patients receiving therapy [...]