Home Health Line
11/16/2015
by: DecisionHealth’s 2015 Home Health Coders’ Salary Survey
The average salary for coders/coding coordinators is nearly $57,000, while the average salary for coding supervisors is nearly $65,000, according to the 200 respondents in DecisionHealth’s 2015 Home Health Coders’ Salary Survey. 
 
11/09/2015
Agencies looking for good news in the 2016 PPS final rule won’t find much. In addition to reductions to the average episode payments, this year’s rule threatens to hit agencies’ pockets with ICD-10 coding changes and potential value-based purchasing cuts.
11/09/2015
Figure out as soon as possible if your electronic medical records (EMR) system will track the new measures to be included in CMS’ value-based purchasing model.
11/09/2015
You won’t lose case-mix points for ICD-10 diagnoses codes that fall under the definition of “initial encounter,” even if you’ve already submitted claims with these codes, according to the 2016 PPS final rule.
11/09/2015
CMS’ new discharge planning proposal likely will cost agencies thousands in upfront expenses, mostly from time spent documenting physician-directed updates to discharge plans and collecting 21 elements including demographics, procedures and diagnoses.
11/09/2015
Software rollout delays and glitches related to the transition to ICD-10 have limited agencies’ ability to dual code and led to claims being returned to providers.
11/09/2015
by: OCS HomeCare by National Research Corporation
Agencies in the nine states participating in CMS’ upcoming value-based purchasing payment model should compare their scores on value-based purchasing measures with their state’s median scores. 
11/02/2015
To answer Response 4 — “Chairfast, unable to ambulate but is able to wheel self independently” in M1860 (Ambulation/locomotion), clinicians must be certain that wheelchair-bound patients can be 100% independent in the use of a wheelchair.
11/02/2015
Reach out to your electronic medical records (EMR) vendor to make sure it will be prepared for the switch next year to new G codes that differentiate levels of nursing services when billing for home health and/or hospice stays.
11/02/2015
Make sure the person doing an annual check of your staff competencies is the same discipline as the staff being checked or risk getting stuck with a condition-level deficiency.

Login

User Name:
Password: