"I have been in home health for 26 years and this is the most frustrating it has ever been!" Comments like this one permeated the responses to our survey asking readers whether they have noticed an increase in the number of payment denials. We reprint your comments here, with some background comment for perspective. The consensus among HCTR readers? A suspicion that MACs, ZPICs, UPICs and other Medicare contractors decide first what percentage of claims they want to deny and develop denial reasons later.
Effective July 1, 2014, hospice organizations will be required to collect and report data related to seven National Quality Forum (NQF) measures. Questions related to pain screening, pain assessment, dyspnea screening, dyspnea treatment, patients on an opioid given a bowel regimen and patient treatment preferences and beliefs/values are included in the new measures. Additionally, […]
by Liz Seegert Under pressure from a lawsuit filed last month by the National Association of Home Care and Hospice, CMS is proposing to eliminate the physician narrative portion from its face-to-face rule. In a draft proposal issued on July 1, CMS noted that physicians must still document a F2F encounter to certify patient […]
by Barbara Rosenblum Contributing to a string of stories about questionable business practices by “big business hospice” is the Huffington Post article “Hospice, Inc.” of June 19, 2014. This and other articles, such as a June 26, 2014 article in the Washington Post, all tell a story, but they do not tell the story. It’s deeply disappointing when these unfortunate experiences […]
HEALTHCAREfirst and Pinnacle Quality Insight; Briggs Healthcare and Footprints EMR Solutions; and Interoperability Alliance and CommonWell Health Alliance are among the companies highlighted in this issue’s Vendor Watch. Each company’s significant activity is described in the short articles that appear in this Vendor Watch. lifHome Health and Hospice CAHPS® Surveys Web-based home health […]
Strategic Healthcare Programs recently announced that it has named Christopher M. Attaya its Vice President of Business Intelligence. Chris had been the CFO of the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston in Charlestown, Massachusetts from 2010 through 2013, and president and CEO of Partners Home Care, Inc. in nearby Waltham before that. SHP founder and CEO […]
This week, the Visiting Nurse Associations of America released the latest in its pathway to best practices, the Blueprint for Excellence, focused on hospice and palliative care. Noting the rise in hospice use and spending for Medicare beneficiaries, VNAA convened leading subject matter experts and clinicians from its membership, academia and accrediting bodies to […]
“Suffocated” “Frustrated” “Nervous” “Frightened” We asked readers whether they had noticed an uptick in the frequency of payment denials, ADRs, ZPIC audits and dings for documentation errors. Your answers revealed that there is a lot of frustration out there, and it has two sources: frustration with commission-hungry Medicare contractors who find errors where there are […]
By Liz Seegert It would be difficult to assemble a more diverse group of experts. With backgrounds spanning hospitals, sales and marketing, managed care, technology, and program management, panelists at April’s “Health Care in Transition” seminar pooled their real-world experiences and cautioned attendees that home care’s future will not be “business as usual” […]
Relias Learning, the online training leader that was formed by a merger among Silverchair Learning, Essential Learning, Care2Learn and the Hospice Education Network, is in the news with two major announcements this month. The Cary, North Carolina company has added more than 90 new palliative care courses to its library. At the same time, […]
