Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Burdensome home health requirement lifted - at least for now.

In a surprise move, Medicare officials Nov. 5 called off the collection of Outcome and Assessment Information Set data for patients with payer sources other than Medicare and Medicaid. That's good news for home health agencies.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is "immediately suspending the requirement to collect private-pay patient data on OASIS," CMS Administrator Tom Scully said in an Open Door Forum for home care providers. A more official, written announcement will be forthcoming, but "for now assume you are not required to collect it as of today," Scully instructed.

He made the decision because it seems a waste of taxpayers' money to require home health agencies to collect the data when they don't submit or use it meaningfully, Scully explained.

But he warned that if CMS could come up with a meaningful use for the data, the collection of it could be reinstituted on very short notice. "This may very well be temporary," Scully cautioned.

Lesson Learned: HHHs have some relief on a seemingly pointless data collection requirement - but for how long still remains unclear.