Home Health & Hospice Week

Get some clues about home care's future in the proposed physician fee schedule for next year.Home health agencies that furnish outpatient therapy in the home will have a whole new set of codes to report on claims, if a proposed rule becomes final. But HHAs that furnish therapy only under the home health benefit also will want to keep close tabs on the therapy coding development.Why? The Centers for Medicare & Medi-caid Services has long indicated its unhappiness with the therapy unit of the home health prospective payment system. Utilization statistics seem to bear out CMS's fears that PPS reimbursement incentives drive therapy provision more than clinical concerns, for at least a portion of HHAs. In an effort to realign or eliminate those incentives, CMS may take a page from its outpatient therapy play book, suggests physical therapist and consultant Cindy Krafft with Fazzi Associates.And now CMS has revealed the [...]