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Home Health & Hospice Week

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New Regs Hit CHOWs Hard

Published on Fri Jan 08, 2010

Broad definition of ownership change could sweep your agency into Medicare's newly enlarged fraud and abuse net. The feds are trying to cut down on home health agency flips, but thanks to some new rules your agency could get stuck in a billing nightmare for something as innocent as a partner departing. In regulations that took effect Jan. 1, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services puts new restrictions on billing for agencies in certain change of ownership (CHOW) situations. New: When an agency has undergone a CHOW in the last 36 months, a second CHOW will trigger a Medicare billing deactivation that the agency can remedy only with a state or deemed accreditation survey, CMS explains in Dec. 18, 2009 Transmittal No. 318 (CR 6750). Once the agency successfully completes the survey, it must send the results to its intermediary, which will reinstate the provider's billing privileges, the transmittal [...]
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