Home Health & Hospice Week

More site visits and more paperwork could be ahead for home care organizations.

A wider range of Medicare providers could be subject to site visits to verify their enrollment information under an April 25 proposal from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

CMS is expanding its site visit policy "to all providers and suppliers when deemed necessary based on questionable enrollment information," the agency says in a proposed rule on Medicare enrollment published in the Federal Register. The 200-plus page rule - which includes, for public comment, the recently modified Medicare enrollment forms - aims to establish a process that ensures qualified providers and suppliers can participate in the program while bad apples are weeded out.

Under the rule, providers and suppliers will have to re-verify their enrollment information every three years.