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Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Notes:

Get Your Physician Orders, Signatures Right

Published on Tue Jan 18, 2011

Documentation second-biggest problem for HHAs, latest CERT review shows. With medical review on the rise, home care providers should pay close attention to the latest Comprehensive Error Rate Testing results. Then they can catch their own mistakes before reviewers do. Problem #1: Recent CERT data have shown that home health agencies' biggest billing problem is "the plan of care and/or home health certification was not signed/dated by the physician prior to the billing of the claim," according to regional home health intermediary Cahaba GBA. "Remember, all services must have a complete order (discipline, modalities, frequency and duration) prior to providing care," Cahaba says in a message to providers. "These orders must be signed and dated prior to billing the claim." Problem #2: CERT data have shown the next-biggest problem to be "documentation does not support the medical necessity of the services provided." This is a catch-all for many documentation sins, [...]
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