The podiatrist's staff can prepare the face-to-face documentation, CMS says in new Q&A. With the April 1 deadline for the physician face-to-face encounter for home care certification already in the rearview mirror, podiatrists and home care providers need to comply with the burdensome regulation. Now some information has come from CMS that may help physicians with their documentation woes. Background: New clarification: The agency lists examples of how that might work. "The support staff can extract the narrative from the physician's own medical record documentation of the encounter," CMS says in Q&A #10482. Or "the support staff can generate the narrative from the physician's electronic medical record software." Another option: In fact, the definition of support staff is pretty wide. "Physician support staff are those staff who work with or for the physician on a regular basis, and, as part of their job duties regularly perform documentation, take dictation from the physician and/or extract from the physician's medical records to support the physician in a variety of ways," CMS says in a separate Q&A (#10484). But the definition doesn't stretch to home health agency employees. "The HHA staff cannot draft the narrative documentation for the physician to sign," CMS says in the Q&A. "This would violate the statutory requirement." CMS also offered an example of what the F2F narrative should look like: "The patient is temporarily homebound secondary to status post total knee replacement and currently walker dependent with painful ambulation. PT is needed to restore the ability to walk without support. Short-term skilled nursing is needed to monitor for signs of decomposition or adverse events from the new COPD medical regimen," CMS gives as an example in Q&A #10480. Note: