Home Health & Hospice Week

Home health agencies that want to dispute transfers may have a long wait -- Cahaba GBA warns it can be "a lengthy process" to have the regional home health intermediary step in.

To head off transfer situations, consultant Rose Kimball advises having your visiting staff clearly identified with methods such as prominent ID badges. That way, confused seniors will more easily realize when a different agency's staff starts making visits, suggests Kimball, with Med-Care Administrative Services in Dallas.

Billing on time is another way for agencies to ward off transfer shortfalls, experts add.

Often mid-episode transfers occur when patients enter the hospital and are directed to another agency upon discharge, cautions Vern Peterschmidt with Peterschmidt & Associates in Albuquerque, NM.

If you're in that boat, you should step up your tracking procedures for patients who go into the hospital, Peterschmidt advises. "You have every right to visit that patient in the hospital," he maintains.