20% of fee-for-service Medicare patients are readmitted within 30 days of discharge, and 34% return to the hospital within 90 days. Reasons cited most often are unclear discharge directions, especially for medications, and lack of follow up communication with caregivers, problems home care is uniquely positioned to mitigate. A new study of ways home care can reduce hospital readmissions is underway with results expected in time for this year’s NAHC Annual Meeting. Delta Health Technologies will underwrite the study, which will be conducted by Fazzi Associates.
Are Medicare certified home health providers taking too big a risk by answering rate cuts with more and longer episodes? A leading research firm reports CMS, MedPAC and Congress are watching closely as total Medicare reimbursements for home health services continue to grow despite annually lower payment rates.
According to CMS data, the number of Medicare certified home health care agencies now exceeds 11,000. New research into that data by Healthcare Market Resources has brought to light a new and better way of understanding the general health of the Medicare home health care industry in an era of healthcare reform. It also helps to explain why the industry’s software vendors seem to be scratching their heads over the phenomenon of growing numbers of agencies but flat sales.
Located an hour’s drive from Joplin, HEALTHCAREfirst has a number of employees with friends and family affected by this month’s record-breaking tornado. In one day, they collected over $6,000 for a relief agency and the company added $5,000. “Devastation from the tornado is unimaginable,” said company president Bobby Robertson.
Volume 3, Number 14 — April 13, 2011 Also from the Home Health News blog: RAC Assistance for Home Care • RAC Assistance for Hospices • The Informed Home Care Clinician • Preventing Hospitalizations Dear Home Care Colleague, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit with McKesson customers at their annual meeting this week. Prior to my […]
“If your CEO answers your question about how to prepare for the conversion from ICD-9 to ICD-10 coding by saying, ‘I’ve already assigned that to the IT department,’ you hereby have my permission to tell him, or her, ‘Are you kidding me?’” With this, two experts, one an RN and the other a CPA offered a live audience a firm warning: get started NOW.
Volume 3, Number 13 — April 6, 2011 Also from the Home Health News blog: RAC Assistance for Home Care • RAC Assistance for Hospices • The Informed Home Care Clinician • Preventing Hospitalizations Dear Home Care Colleague, Technology touches nearly every function in home care agencies and hospices, from clinical to financial and everything […]
One of our advertisers has been promoting a service designed to aggregate financial information in order to help home care providers make a strong case before Medicaid officials intent on slashing rates. Though the fee to use the site and benefit from its data analyses was extremely low, the company has decided to make it completely free. We spoke with Frank Giannantonio, president of FGA, Inc., to find out what motivated such a move.
More than the latest buzzword, Revenue Cycle Management is a philosophy for running a business. In today’s Medicare, Medicaid, Private Duty and non-skilled homecare services businesses, managing revenue from beginning to end means improving compliance as much as it means ensuring complete and accurate billing processes and A/R follow up procedures.
We do not often run editorial pieces, preferring to stick to reporting straight news. However, the budget battle raging in Congress right now is on the verge of doing tremendous damage to Medicare, including its home care benefit. Unfortunately, current events are too often interpreted without reference to their historical context. So we went back eight years to resurrect a legislative story that may help us better understand Representative Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) new proposal to do away with Medicare entirely.
To be clear: as opinion pieces are supposed to be, this one is admittedly one-sided, though its point of view is based on historical facts that are easily verifiable. It will come across as critical of both Ryan and one other giant of CMS history, Thomas A. Scully. Reader feedback is welcome, whether you agree or disagree. It is intended to be read in tandem with this week’s report (above) on a decision made by one of our advertisers, FGA, Inc., a decision quite the opposite of what Scully and Ryan are known for.
