Home Health & Hospice Week

Other topics covered in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' June 4 Open Door Forum include: HIPAA. Regional home health intermediaries Palmetto GBA, United Government Services and Associated Hospital Service of Maine were ready to accept Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act testing for claim-related transactions, but Cahaba GBA wasn't quite ready at the time of the meeting. CMS continues to offer free HIPAA readiness workshops around the nation and information on its HIPAA Web site at www.cms. hhs.gov/hipaa/hipaa2. Providers also can ask questions directly to CMS via its HIPAA mailbox at askhipaa@cms.hhs.gov. The HIPAA electronic transaction and code set standards compliance deadline is Oct. 16. (See Eli's Health Information Compliance Alert and Eli's HIPAA Training Alert for more information). Reverse mortgages. CMS plans to propose incentives for seniors to use reverse mortgages to fund their long-term care insurance costs. More information on reverse mortgages and how seniors can use them to fund home care and other costs is at the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Web site at www.hud.gov/buying/rvrsmort.cfm. DME coding. Durable medical equipment suppliers can put their two cents in on HCPCS codes and payment for new DME items at a public meeting in Baltimore June 24 and 25. More information is at www.cms.hhs.gov/medicare/hcpcs/default.asp OASIS changes. CMS is waiting on clearance to issue a report about changes it plans to make to OASIS based on suggestions from the home health industry, among others. The agency hasn't yet determined if it will make meetings of the OASIS Technical Expert Panel (TEP) open to the public. The TEP debates and recommends OASIS changes.