Home Health Line
03/30/2015
During a recent open door forum, CMS provided inaccurate information to home health agencies regarding their role in providing documentation to support certification for home health services, the federal Medicare agency acknowledged. 
 
03/30/2015
Legislation now taking shape in the House to finally do away with the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for deciding Medicare’s physician reimbursement rates would demand less of the home health industry than feared.
 
03/30/2015
Home health agencies are at risk and potentially costing themselves thousands of dollars in incomplete or improperly coded records by not having a backup plan when their coder is out of the office sick or on vacation, according to the results of DecisionHealth’s Home Health Coders’ Productivity Survey of 230 coders.
 
03/30/2015
After listening to industry comments on its proposed 5-Star rating system for home health, CMS has removed the process measure “Pneumococcal Vaccine Ever Received” from the rating system. 
 
03/30/2015
The average hospice profit margin, including the effect of the 2% sequester reimbursement reduction, will drop to 6.6% this year, compared with 10.1% as recently as 2012, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). 
 
03/30/2015
by: Megan Gustafson
About 23% of coders say they code five or fewer charts per day, and about 28% of coders code six to 10. That’s according to the 230 respondents for DecisionHealth’s Home Health Coders’ Productivity Survey.
 
03/23/2015
For the first time since CMS revamped face-to-face requirements by eliminating the need for a physician narrative, it has provided agencies with a step-by-step process to gather documentation and avoid denials. However, agencies remain confused about what CMS wants their role to be in contributing information to supplement physician notes.
 
03/23/2015
The home health industry is just beginning to feel the effects of civil monetary penalties — a new punishment following state surveys that could potentially have devastating impacts on non-compliant agencies.
 
03/23/2015
Effective use of your agency’s Facebook page — using advertising strategies such as boosting posts — can help significantly with recruiting new employees.
 
03/23/2015
The House Ways and Means Committee has endorsed a bipartisan bill that would require agencies to obtain a minimum of $50,000 in surety bond coverage, similar to surety bonds that have been required of home medical equipment (HME) suppliers since 2009.
 

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