Home Health & Hospice Week

CMS gives HHAS a survey wakeup call with alternative sanctions.Are you ready to pay $10,000 per day for your survey mistakes? That's what could happen under a newly proposed rule from Medicare.The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sets out a whole new array of "alternative sanctions" that surveyors can use before they get to Medicare termination, according to CMS's 2013 home health prospective payment system proposed rule published in the July 13 Federal Register. The new sanctions range from Civil Monetary Penalties (CMPs) to mandatory in-service training (see story below for a full list of the proposed sanctions).The sanctions aim to provide "incentives for HHAs to achieve and maintain full compliance with the requirements ... before termination becomes necessary," CMS says in the rule.If finalized, the alternative sanctions will result in "an enormous change" in how home health agencies deal with issues of noncompliance, predicts Washington, D.C.-based health care [...]