Home Health & Hospice Week

Say goodbye to claims source of admission codes 'B' and 'C.' Patient transfers from one home health agency to another can be tricky, and now transfers might get even more complicated with a new billing requirement. Come July, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is eliminating source of admission codes "B" and "C," CMS says in Feb. 5 Transmittal No. 1904 (CR 6757). That's because the National Uniform Billing Committee has changed the former source of admission codes to "point of origin" codes that must specify a place rather than a referral source, CMS explains. Old way: Code "B" currently represents "transfer from another home health agency" and code "C" indicates "readmission to the same home health agency." Both codes trigger a partial episode payment adjustment (PEP). New way: For dates of service July 1 or later, HHAs will use new condition code "47" instead of code "B." Code [...]