Home Health & Hospice Week

Don't breathe a sigh of relief if you didn't receive a letter requesting proof of state licensure or accreditation in Palmetto GBA's latest round -- your turn will soon come, no matter who your intermediary is.

On April 12, regional home health intermediary Palmetto sent home health agencies letters requiring submission of the HHA's licensure and/or accreditation information. Agencies must submit the documentation by April 30 (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIX, No. 15, p. 119).

"Failure to submit valid state license and/or accreditation documentation by the requested date will result in your Medicare billing privileges being revoked," Palmetto warns.

All HHAs nationwide will get a similar request at some point, said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in the April 14 Open Door Forum for home care providers. Proof of accreditation is required only when the agency is not surveyed by the state, added CMS's Jim Bossenmeyer in the call that drew 452 participants.

Exception: "Based on Ohio licensure law, providers that do not have deemed status or accreditation do not have to submit additional documentation to Palmetto GBA," the intermediary says in an update on its Web site.

Also, "home health providers awaiting Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS) licensing resolution may submit their expired license with a copy of the letter from DADS allowing operation of the agency to Palmetto GBA," the intermediary adds.

Other HHA and hospice issues raised in the forum include:

• Rural Add-On. The 3 percent rural addon mandated in the recently enacted health care reform package may start making it into your payments by April 30.

Contractors are installing and testing the prospective payment system pricer software that will enable payment of the add-on, reported CMS's Randy Throndset in the call. "We expect to begin paying claims using this new software by April 30," he said.

Stay tuned: CMS later will issue information on how the add-on payment for claims processed before April 30 will be processed. The add-on applies to claims with episodes ending April 1 or later.

• OASIS C. Watch for CMS to issue a new manual about the OASIS C process measures any day. "This manual will provide an explanation and description of the process measure report that will be available in September from CASPER about the different process measures from OASIS C," CMS's Pat Sevast explained in the call. And, better late than never, you will get more help from CMS on OASIS C training. CMS is developing two one-hour "Web broadcast training sessions," Sevast reported. They will be available in late spring or early summer. CMS also may develop more Web-based training modules, she added.

• CAHPS. Time is running out to meet the third-quarter deadline for conducting your first Home Health Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys and submittingthe data.

"We're asking that everybody look at the [vendor] list as soon as possible so that they have enough time to select a vendor and so they can do the home health CAHPS dry run in the third quarter of 2010 beginning in July," urged CMS's Lori Teichman in the call.

Reminder: HHAs that qualify for a CAHPS exemption due to their small size need to fill out the appropriate application, Teichman said. "If the form is filed, these agencies do not have to do the home health CAHPS survey to receive their full [payment update] for calendar date 2012."