Delayed by CMS at the behest of the industry, HHGM was included in an obscure amendment to a budget bill and passed into law on February 9. In a 3-part series beginning this week, guest author Michael McGowan unpacks what this means to HHAs.
By Tim Rowan, Editor & Publisher, Home Care Technology Report On March 13, the Senate confirmed Seema Verma to be the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on a 55-43 vote, with four Democrats joining 51 Republican Senators voting for confirmation. Who is Seema Verma and what healthcare philosophy does she bring […]
On February 1, 2017, a judge in the so-called Jimmo case ordered the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to enter into a Corrective Action Plan (CAP). The CAP requires CMS to provide more education about the addition of a coverage standard for maintenance therapy. That is, CMS is required to provide additional education to providers regarding the fact that improvement is not required in order to be eligible for Medicare coverage for skilled care in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), home health agencies (HHAs), outpatient therapy centers and inpatient rehabilitation hospitals.
By Tim Rowan. Editor If there is a single criticism that summarizes all the complaints about the CMS document that misrepresents early Pre-Claim Review results in Illinois, it is this. The decision to publish spin instead of fact is a tacit admission by the bureaucrats at CMS that they know Pre-Claim Review is failing. If […]
New hospitals and health care providers join successful, cutting-edge federal initiative that cuts costs and puts patients at the center of their care. Medicare Accountable Care Organization initiatives to improve how the health system cares for patients
On September 18, 133 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, from both sides of the aisle, delivered a letter to CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt expressing their deep concern with proposed Medicare home health funding cuts. On September 24, a bipartisan group of Senators followed up with their own letter expressing the same […]
By Tim Rowan Last week, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT released the final Federal Health IT Strategic Plan for 2015 to 2020,
by Tim Rowan On July 31, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a final rule (CMS-1629-F) that updates fiscal year 2016 Medicare payment rates and the wage index for hospices serving Medicare beneficiaries. For convenience, we reprint the official CMS summary of the final rule in the sidebar at the bottom of […]
There is a serious battle brewing between NAHC and CMS. NAHC Vice President for Law Bill Dombi has written a letter of complaint to CMS regarding the behavior and competence of one Zone Program Integrity Contractor, Health Integrity, LLC. The letter accuses Health Integrity’s Vice President for Operations, a Mr. James Hargrove, of improper, over-zealous […]
Analysis by Editor Tim Rowan
The Face-to-Face documentation rule is not achieving its intended goal, restraining Medicare fraud. It is doing nothing other than increasing the number of payment denials to honest agencies that cannot get their referring physicians to find the right wording. This is the message delivered in no uncertain terms this week to two PGBA educators, who may have known what kind of a lion’s den they were walking into but came prepared with no satisfying answers.
