Adapt & Learn to Think Outside the Box - 11/19/2015

Yesterday I wrote an article for home health agencies.  Today’s article is for hospices.  Hospice seems to follow home health in the regulation development department.  This year we have new payment rates for the first sixty days of a patients hospice stay, reduced payment rates for the remaining days of a patient’s hospice day and a possibility of Services Intensity Add-on (SAI) Payment for the last seven days of a patient’s life.  This new rule alone is probably driving your IT and billing personnel nuts. 

These new variable routine home care payment codes will make it more difficult to determine where you stand with your annual hospice cap.  We also have ICD-10-CM coding up and running along with adding all the appropriate diagnosis codes to your hospice claims.  CMS made some last minute changes to some of the items in the new Hospice Medicare Cost Report that is in effect for all hospices with years beginning on or after October 1, 2014

I have been involved in the Medicare program for over 30 years and have seen tremendous amounts of change, but I have not seen so much change in such a short period of time.  Just think about Routine Home Care Payment Changes, New Hospice Medicare Cost Report,  Calculating your own Hospice CAP Report, ZIPCs, RACs, ICD-10-CM, New Wage & Hour Laws, and potential new hospice payment rates in the future. 

You will have the opportunity to obtain much of the information you need at our new “Plug in to Win” 2-Day Hospice Seminar at Bally’s in Las Vegas, NV January 28^th to January 29^th.  This seminar feature Richard Dixon, President of Dixon Healthcare Solutions, Inc.  It will also feature J’non Griffin one of the leading hospice coding and clinical experts in the country, Robert Liles one of the leading hospice attorney’s, and Heather Calhoun a leading clinical and quality improvement consultant.   You will have the opportunity for free 15 minute appointments with each speaker.  Over 99% of our previous attendees recommend and would attend a future Dixon Healthcare Solutions, Inc. seminar.  Learn to adapt and think outside the box so your home health agency can succeed.