Home Health & Hospice Week

CMS offers new guidance on reporting visits in hospice facilities. If your hospice claims are getting kicked out of the Medicare claims system for having too many line items, chances are you aren't reporting inpatient visits correctly. The problem: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requires hospices to report visits by their nurses, home health aides, social workers, physicians, and nurse practitioners. When the patient is residing in a hospice facility, the definition of what constitutes a visit seems to be confusing hospices, said CMS's Randy Throndset in last month's Open Door Forum for home care providers. Some hospices are submitting claims with too many line items and the claims system is rejecting the claims, one hospice caller noted in the forum that drew 400 attendees. "Providers are finding it difficult to correctly count visits for patients that are in a facility," agrees billing expert M. Aaron Little with [...]