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Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

HOSPICE:

Will Your Hospice GIP Documentation Stand Up to a Tough Review?

Published on Sun Jul 19, 2009

Burnish your documentation skills. Will your hospice general inpatient (GIP) claims pass muster with reviewers? You may find out sooner than you think, now that GIP is on reviewers' radar. Arecent whistleblower lawsuit highlights GIP's status as a hospice hot spot. That's in large part due to the reimbursement -- more than $620 per day for GIP care versus about $140 for routine home care -- and increased utilization of the hospice care level. "The payment differential does cause the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to fret, with reason, about the use of inpatient care," notes Jay Mahoney with Summit Business Group in Penfield, N.Y. The authorities shouldn't be alarmed by rising GIP use, maintains Mahoney, former president of the National Hospice Organization. "We are probably seeing a greater instance of GIP level of care -- more admissions ... and more days," Mahoney acknowledges. "But as a percentage of total days of [...]
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