CMS released new Q&As March 1 to provide additional guidance on therapy reassessment and face-to-face encounter clarifications outlined in the final 2013 PPS rule.
 
On face-to-face encounters, CMS clarifies that:
  • Agencies may date and title face-to-face encounter documentation when the certifying physician neglects to do so.
  • The date may be either the date the physician signed the documentation or the date the agency received the documentation.
  • The documentation content requirements aren’t changing and the documentation still has to be signed by the certifying physician in all cases.
 
On therapy reassessments, CMS clarifies that:
  • A multi-therapy discipline becomes a single-therapy discipline “[w]hen the patient’s plan of care has been changed to reflect that only one type of therapy is to be provided.”
 
The therapy Q&As also contain an in-depth scenario which shows how subsequent visits’ coverage status is affected when a reassessment is missed. For an illustration of this scenario and more in-depth coverage of the Q&As, see the next issue of Home Health Line.