Home Health Line
01/13/2014
Be prepared to hold mock emergency drills, develop a reliable way to exchange information about at-risk patients with emergency response officials and pay hundreds of dollars to comply with CMS’ proposed emergency preparedness rule. If finalized, this rule would be added to the Medicare Conditions for Participation.
 
 
01/13/2014
A growing number of home health agencies are considering undergoing a deemed status survey conducted by an accreditation organization every three years. This survey would replace the Medicare certification and recertification surveys a state surveyor would conduct on CMS’ behalf. Agencies should also be prepared to pay around $8,000 to $9,000 to accrediting organizations for the initial survey. The fees are based on various factors such as the size of the organization, its patient census and the number of days a surveyor spends on-site.
 
01/13/2014
Agencies that are trying to determine whether they will be subject to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer insurance mandate next year should begin tracking employee hours differently starting right now.
01/13/2014
The portal that Caring Companion Home Care created to update clients’ loved ones with health status changes, caregiver schedules, medication updates and meal reports has helped lead to an estimated 30% increase in referrals since the portal launched in 2009.
01/13/2014
Interest in specializing in dementia care is growing in the home care industry and more families are looking for this type of assistance. This is in part because many nursing facilities are unwilling to care for people with these conditions, experts say.
01/13/2014
Many agencies plan to spend more money on information technology, education and training in 2014 while spending the same amount of money in sales/marketing and recruitment/hiring they did in 2013, according to HHL’s 2014 trends survey. Among the survey’s 172 respondents, 65% plan to spend more on education/training and 52% plan to spend more on information technology. 

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