Comments for Homecare & Hospice News

Comment on Defend Your HHA Against MSW Denials by Marta Ortiz

Marta Ortiz — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:37:44 +0000

Good information it help me to clariry a few questions

Comment on Case Study: Orientation Tool for Hospice Staff by Editor

Editor — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:37:57 +0000

Hi, Barbara: I was impressed by the creativity too. I imagine it is available for purchase, because they’ve trademarked it. I’m not sure about the particulars, so I’ll contact the writer who did this piece for more details. If she knows how to find out more, she’ll pop in here with more information. Best, Erin Lang Masercola, PhD, CPC

Comment on Case Study: Orientation Tool for Hospice Staff by Barbara Westland

Barbara Westland — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:49:47 +0000

Excellent orientation program. We have done this in a different way but not as engaging as the Hospice Game. Is this available for purchase. Congratulations for your creativity.bjw

Comment on OASIS C Is Ready To Roll: Are You? by Bonnie

Bonnie — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:07:36 +0000

You can reference the American Association of Medical Audit Specialists to see if their annual conference or preconference workshops might be of benefit to you. See http://www.aamas.org

Comment on Big Home Care Players Shop for Small HHAs by Lynda Laff

Lynda Laff — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:51:29 +0000

I am quite concerned to see many smaller independent home health agencies decide to sell. Community based agencies with local management have been the backbone of home health care for many years. Locally owned home health agencies truly have the local community’s interest in mind.

Comment on OASIS C Is Ready To Roll: Are You? by Rebecca Johnson

Rebecca Johnson — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:53:16 +0000

I would recommend starting with your regional home health intermediary as a resource. Most intermediaries have instruction manuals plus tools like job aids or quick reference sheets for the most common billing trouble spots. Their websites are http://www.palmettogba.com, http://www.cahabagba.com/rhhi and http://www.ngsmedicare.com. National and state trade groups also offer good educational sessions on billing.

Comment on OASIS C Is Ready To Roll: Are You? by JRoh

JRoh — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 15:08:06 +0000

I am curious if you know of any good resources for learning home health billing aside from the Medicare website. Any manuals, etc that do a good job of explaining the process?

Comment on Clinicians Among 30 Arrested for Home Health Fraud by tom

tom — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:10:19 +0000

I believe this fraud was reported to authorities some time ago by ethical HC companies. It takes CMS and OIG too long to react and the money has been spent. Real time flags to verify beneficaries claims before checks are mailed should be required for ” hot areas” of abuse.

Comment on OIG Report Links Miami-Dade Home Health Outlier Payments to Diabetes by Editor

Editor — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:53:50 +0000

Thanks for writing in, Amy. One reason these Miami-Dade reports worry me is that in this time of heightened audits and fraud scrutiny, it’s going to be harder for home care providers in some areas to bill Medicare for taking care of their diabetic patients. And for the reasons you mention, some areas may have more *legitimate* outlier payments than others.

That’s why it’s important for home care providers to code correctly and make sure their clinicians document well. We often cover issues like that in *Homecare & Hospice News* (example: see our diabetes coding how-to article from a couple weeks ago here: http://homecarenews.inhealthcare.com/hot-topics/home-health-coding-challenge-double-diabetes-hybrid-diabetes/). And we’ll continue to do so in the future to help HHAs continue to serve their patients as best they can.

Best, Erin Lang Masercola, PhD, CPC

Comment on OIG Report Links Miami-Dade Home Health Outlier Payments to Diabetes by Amy Pastor RN

Amy Pastor RN — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:28:30 +0000

They have compared the number of outliers (diabetic patients) to the rest of the states but have not taken into consideration the following:
The elderly STILL come to Miami and retire here
The “snowbirds” stay for months and require these services also.
The majority of the diabetic population are either African-Americans or Hispanics, who are pre-disposed to this disease moreso than others. I agree with cracking down on companies that only want these types of patients in order to collect a large sum of money, or to stop the agencies that have “created” diabetics…patients they are visiting that are not diabetic. This is wrong! I have been in this business for 18 years, specifically in home care. Many of these patients will end up back in the hospital, using up much more medicare money than if they were to be in Home care. I am hearing of Agencies that are currently shutting their doors and patients are not being seen or serviced. That is not appropriate.I am also hearing of many that are the plans are to place these patients in Nursing Homes, that too is very, very expensive. January will be a month in home care history that I will not forget.