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End-of-Life Care Takes Center Stage at IOM
Home health and hospice agencies are on the front lines of the societal changes around death that are beginning to take place. For most of human history, death was viewed as an expected part of life....
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Steps to Safeguard Your Agency’s Mobile Devices
You certainly know that HIPAA standards apply to the use of mobile devices, but keeping protected health information (PHI) truly private is a monumental task for most agencies. We can help on the...
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PHI Incident Shows Need for Strict Volunteer Policies
Protecting patient identities can seem like an uphill struggle, but learning from other healthcare organizations is an excellent way to fix policies in advance of a breach. A recent event at Jackson...
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Physician-Patient Communication Key to Thoughtful Hospice Use
End-of-life decisions are some of the hardest we’ll ever make. Society will continue to grapple with these issues, of course, but it’s good to see that the recognition of hospice care is growing. A...
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Audits Underline Need for Caution Among Hospice Agencies
As the industry takes on new importance in today’s care environment, it’s critical that hospice agencies review and validate admission policies to stay in compliance. The Health and Human Services...
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Local Research Can Pay Dividends – Literally
I try to write about and comment on happenings of national importance in the home health and hospice industries. But for every national initiative I mention, there are a huge number of local...
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Home Health, Hospice Play Vital Roles in Reform Efforts
Testifying before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee in late February, nowhere in 16 pages of prepared remarks did Jonathan Blum specifically mention home care, home health or hospice. Nevertheless,...
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Palliative Care at a Crossroads
Longer life expectancies and the accompanying proliferation of chronic disease are bringing into sharp focus the differences between hospice care and palliative care. Home health and hospice agencies...
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VA Looks to Open Up Home Health, Hospice to Non-VA Providers
Home health and hospice agencies would be able to serve more veterans under new rules currently being considered by the Veterans Administration. The proposed rule would allow veterans to seek extended...
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Don’t Fret over Co-Pay, Reimbursement Proposals
The home health and hospice industries may face continued reimbursement cuts and homecare co-pays starting in 2017 if President Obama’s latest federal budget proposal is enacted. CMS and the...
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Hospice Agencies Need Their Own Formulas
Your hospice agency should be collecting data on the same four metrics that home health agencies do, says David J. Berman, CPA, CVA, principal at Simione Healthcare Consultants LLC. However, the...
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Using Agency Data to Manage Effectively
Now that you’ve compiled the relevant data about revenue, margins, cash flow and efficiencies for your home health or hospice agency, how can your agency benefit? The idea is to collect relevant...
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Sharing More Data? Ask More Questions.
Sharing data is becoming a common occurrence for home health and hospice agencies, whether you’re exchanging specific patient data with another provider or more general data on your patient population...
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Don’t Forget that ACA Affects Your Agency Operations
Home health and hospice agencies have been focusing on how the Affordable Care Act affects their reimbursements and how they can participate in new care models. What may have been lost in the shuffle...
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Clarified CMS Rules Mean It’s Time to Review Coding
With the Hospice FY2014 Payment and Wage Index Final Rule issued August 6, 2013 by CMS, now is the perfect time to review hospice billing and coding practices. The more your agency understands the...
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Hospice Benefits Proven for a Variety of Lengths of Stay
Data has consistently shown that hospice improves quality of care and lowers costs, but until now, the benefits had only been proven for patients enrolled 53 to 105 days before death. A study released...
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Small Change Brings Huge Results
The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Home Health Care Survey raises the importance of quality reporting and patient satisfaction by linking reporting to payments. Small...
View ArticleEducation, Networking Abound at NAHC 2013
I certainly hope that you or members of your staff will be joining us next week at the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) 2013 Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, DC....
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The 40-Hour Full-Time Act Has Legs… and Is Running Full-Steam Ahead
In the United States, many employers take it for granted that a 40-hour work week is the definition of a full-time employee. But in a recent teleconference presented by the National Association for...
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Hospice Final Rule Includes July Start for New Data Requirement
The Hospice FY2014 Final Rule that CMS released on August 7 includes a 1% payment increase for services rendered on or after October 1, 2013. It also includes a warning against using non-specific...
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