Home Health & Hospice Week

Interim final rule boosts the feds' authority.

An interim final rule announced just before Halloween could bring quite a scare to home health agencies and other providers faced with the specter of survey revisit fees.

News flash: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said that it would publish an interim final rule on Oct. 31 that would extend collection of fees into November for repeat visits by inspectors to hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities that fail initial inspections.

The interim final rule was mandated in the Continuing Appropriations Resolution President Bush signed in September. That legislation extends the authority of the fiscal year 2007 Continuing Resolution from Oct. 1 through Nov. 16, and allows assessment of the so-called revisit fees for that period, according to CMS.

Background: On Sept. 19, CMS published a final rule requiring health care facilities--including home health agencies and nursing homes--that fail to meet federal quality standards to pay the revisit user fees to cover the costs associated with follow-up surveys designed to that corrections were made (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XVI, No. 32).

Timeframe: Though the regulation is effective Oct. 1, CMS is accepting comments through Dec. 31.