Home Health Line
08/03/2015
Agencies should audit 100% of their claims for coding accuracy beginning Aug. 3 in preparation for the implementation of ICD-10. Doing so could help agencies identify and resolve issues in processes so that they will get paid properly and avoid billing delays when the code set begins Oct. 1. 
 
08/03/2015
Clinicians answering M1860 (Ambulation/Locomotion) should pay close attention to whether patients are safely using one hand or two as they use assistive devices such as knee scooters.
 
08/03/2015
The 21st Century Cures Act could be a step in the direction of a goal long sought by the home health industry — Medicare reimbursement for telehealth costs agencies incur.
 
08/03/2015
CMS is embarking on an experiment that will allow an estimated 150,000 beneficiaries, who physicians have diagnosed as terminal, to receive curative care at the same time as palliative care.
 
08/03/2015
Home care agencies may be responsible for paying overtime for a larger pool of employees, thanks to a proposed rule released July 6.
 
08/03/2015
CMS has once again extended its moratoria on new home health agencies and new branches of existing home health agencies by six months in six metropolitan areas. 
 
08/03/2015
Home health agencies and other employers that fail to document a “recordable” workplace injury or illness could potentially be cited by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) up to five years after the incident, if a new proposal from OSHA is finalized. 
 
08/03/2015
CMS has amended the protocol for when it’s acceptable to provide aggregated responses to the “About You” questions — questions 26-32 — of the HHCAHPS. Now, responses will only be permitted if there are at least 10 responses for every response option for each of these questions.
 
08/03/2015
At this point, agencies should feel that ICD-10’s implementation date is set in stone, argues consultant Arlene Maxim of A.D. Maxim Consulting in Troy, Mich. 
 
08/03/2015
Many agencies feel their coders’ productivity will plummet during the transition to ICD-10. In fact, about 15% of agencies’ coders only code one, two or three charts a day, but during the first three months of ICD-10, about 23% of agencies expect coders to complete that many charts, according to the 142 respondents to a coding question on HHL’s 2015 Productivity Survey.

Login

User Name:
Password: