Eli's Rehab Report

If you don't like what you see, make sure your voice is heard.

The feds' laundry list of newly "clarified" requirements for home health therapy includes some doozies that will seriously affect how you operate.

Study these proposed changes and then make sure you submit a comment on the final rule that expresses how the requirement will impact your patients' care.

• Therapy goals with objective measurements;
• an in-person functional assessment by the physical therapist on the 13th and 19th visits and every 30 days;
• assessment of progress toward the goal using the objective measurements;
• items required in assistant notes, including that they not make clinical judgments about progress;
• items required in therapist notes, including justification of why the patient will improve if they haven't yet at reassessment;
• delineation of a therapy maintenance program and its requirements; and
• claims reporting of new G codes for assistants.

Source: Read the HH PPS Proposed Rule For 2011 in the July 23 Federal Register at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-17753.pdf. Comments are due Sept. 14.