Home Health Line
02/16/2015
CMS will implement its new 5-Star rating system on Home Health Compare using half-star increments instead of the full-star increments as previously discussed. The first stars can be viewed by the public starting in July and will be updated quarterly. 
 
02/16/2015
Part of the key to improving OASIS outcomes at the start of care (SOC) is having therapists, who are specialists in improving activities of daily living (ADLs), train nurses to understand what a term like ‘safely’ means when answering an item like M1860 (Ambulation).
 
02/16/2015
Make sure your hospice’s social workers and chaplains properly train nurses about how to recognize and treat anxiety and sadness in patients who refuse the help of social workers or chaplains.
 
02/16/2015
CMS held an open door forum Feb. 11 to discuss the benefits of clinical templates it is creating for doctors to use when documenting a face-to-face visit with a patient.
 
02/16/2015
by: Strategic Health Programs
A question about providing help for feelings of anxiety or sadness scored worse than another other question in the Hospice CAHPS Survey, according to pre-dry run data released Jan. 28 by Strategic Healthcare Programs in Santa Barbara, Calif.
 
02/09/2015
CMS has released a voluntary, five-page “clinical template” to reduce home health claims denials for lack of face-to-face information. But preliminary reaction from the home health industry suggests concern that physicians won’t have the time to complete such lengthy forms.
 
02/09/2015
Make sure your agency has a process for submitting timely OASIS assessments to prevent future additional documentation requests (ADRs) that CMS will be better able to detect as a result of its new system.
 
02/09/2015
One Florida hospice had 100% success during CMS’ recent ICD-10 end-to-end testing week. It believes its prior preparation in advance of ICD-10’s Oct. 1 implementation date — from training coders to educating clinicians about the detail documentation requires — allowed it to be fully prepared for testing.
 
02/09/2015
President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2016 budget once again sets out Medicare savings at the expense of home health. That could be attractive to lawmakers as they consider ways to offset the cost of avoiding the deep cut in physician payments that will occur in March unless Congress acts.
 
02/09/2015
Hospices providing care within assisted living facilities (ALFs) should carefully examine their eligibility criteria and admission process in the wake of a new HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) report citing troubling data attached to such care.
 

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