Health Information Compliance Alert

Published on Thu Aug 08, 2013 PDF

Say Goodbye To HHABN, Hello To HHCCN

Home health providers can hold off on ordering any more copies of the home health advance beneficiary notice form. The Office of Management and Budget has approved the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Home Health Change of Care Notice (HHCCN), CMS’s Evelyn Blaemire revealed in the July 9 Open Door Forum for home care providers.

How it will work: CMS is replacing the current HHABN (R296) with a combination of the regular ABN (R131) and the new CCN (10280), Blaemire explained. The ABN will replace the HHABN Option Box 1 (in which the patient declines non-covered services or agrees to pay out of pocket for them). The CCN will replace Option Box 2 (for changes due to agency needs) and Option Box 3 (for reduction in services as required by a physician order).

CMS will be releasing the forms “in the near future,” Blaemire said. HHAs then will have 60 days to transition to the new forms, although they can use them immediately if they want to.

Earlier this year, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice praised CMS “for taking steps to clarify and simplify the process for informing Medicare beneficiaries of reductions in service by proposing the use of two separate forms.”

Watch for CMS to post the new forms at www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-General-Information/BNI/HHABN.html.

Know This Signature Rule For Home Health and Hospice Plans Of Care

Give yourself fewer physician signatures to collect by organizing your plan of care correctly. Physicians don’t have to sign every page of the plan of care if it is clearly marked with page numbers, Home Health & Hospice MAC NHIC says in a question-and-answer set from its recent virtual room session on the Medicare Home Health Coverage guidelines.

“There must be a dated physician signature by the certification statement on the POC,” NHIC explains. “If the pages of the POC are marked as page 1 of 2, page 2 of 2 so it is evident the signature applies to all pages of the document, then the physician signature is only needed on 1 page by the certification statement.”