Home Health Line Breaking News
01/30/2013
Testimony presented at a Jan. 29 meeting of the Health IT Policy and HIT Standards committees in Washington, D.C., was optimistic about the future of health information exchanges (HIEs), but also pointed to some ongoing challenges, Fierce EMR reports.
 
One of those is the need to remain financially sustainable.
 
01/25/2013
Medicare administrative contractor (MAC) Palmetto GBA has announced it’ll implement a targeted review of two HIPPS codes with high denial rates.
 
The key piece of information that’s missing is which HIPPS codes those are.
 
01/24/2013
The Chief Judge of Vermont’s U.S. District Court today gave her approval for the “improvement standard” settlement proposed by the Obama administration in October.
 
Experts say the decision could lead to more long-term care in the home health setting.
01/23/2013
You’ll need to submit a business associate agreement to HHS’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) by Friday, Jan. 25, if don’t already have one in place, to get an extra six months to comply with new business associate regulations in the recently released HIPAA mega-rule.
 
The rule expanded the definition of “business associate."
 
01/17/2013
The Home Health Compare update on Jan. 17 brought few significant score changes, with one exception: Acute care hospitalization (ACH) now is reported as a claims-based measure.
 
As a result, the score for this measure changed from 26% in the October update to 17% now.
 
01/17/2013
Providers will have to give patients electronic copies of their health information and use “a more objective standard” to determine whether patients were harmed by breaches under the HIPAA mega-rule released Jan. 17.
 
The rule consolidates four separate rules that would significantly change how you comply with privacy and security requirements.
01/16/2013
A CMS demonstration that’s adding billions to reimbursement of Medicare Advantage plans has been criticized – again – by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s chairman for causing a surge in plan enrollment Congress never intended.
 
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) links plan reimbursements to care quality.
 
01/16/2013
In the latest quarterly OASIS Q&As, published Jan. 16, CMS recommended that agencies err on the side of caution when different falls tools yield different results.
 
The federal agency also gave guidance on software-assisted OASIS completion.
01/10/2013
The VNA of Texas announced Jan. 8 that it will no longer provide home health care, focusing instead on hospice, private duty and Meals on Wheels services.
 
The VNA has been around since 1934.
 
01/08/2013
A little-noticed provision of the congressional agreement reached earlier this month removes a barrier to collecting overpayments which are more than three years old. 
 
Auditors now have two more years to collect overpayments in cases where they have no evidence of fraud.
 

Login

User Name:
Password: