Home Health & Hospice Week

Home care providers question CMS's education effort for docs on the new requirement. The new face to face encounter (FFE) requirement comes with a lot of headaches, and the biggest one may be getting physicians on board for the mandate. Case in point: Hospitals are getting a myriad of forms for FFEs from home health agencies, said a hospital caller in the Jan. 19 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Open Door Forum for home care providers. Hospitals don't necessarily feel it's their job "to get this done," said the caller who said she was from a Colorado hospital. And hospitals are having a hard time locating reliable information about the requirement. "It's not the hospital's responsibility, it is the physician who certifies eligibility for the home health benefit," maintained CMS's Lori Anderson in the call. But that amounts to the same thing, the caller said. CMS has launched a [...]