Several Important Notices from CMS for Home Care Providers
Certifying Patients for the Medicare Home Health Benefit — Registration Now Open
When: Tues., Dec. 16 from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Registration: MLN Connects Event Registration. Space may be limited, register early.
The CY 2015 Home Health Prospective Payment System final rule finalized a new patient certification requirement for home health agencies beginning Jan. 1, 2015. During this MLN Connects National Provider Call, CMS subject matter experts will discuss the changes to the Medicare home health benefit, followed by a question and answer session.
Agenda:
- Benefit overview
- Patient eligibility
- Certification requirements, including the required face-to-face encounter
- Recertification requirements
- Resources
- Q&A session
Preparing for ICD-10 - Testing this Week: Nov. 17-21
To help you prepare for the transition to ICD-10, CMS offers acknowledgement testing for current direct submitters (providers and clearinghouses) to test with the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) and Common Electronic Data Interchange (CEDI) anytime up to the October 1, 2015 implementation date.
This past March, CMS conducted a successful acknowledgement testing week. These acknowledgement testing weeks give submitters access to real-time help desk support and allows CMS to analyze testing data. Registration is not required for these virtual events. Mark your calendar:
- Nov. 17-21, 2014
- March 2-6, 2015
- June 1-5, 2015
How to participate:
Information is available on your MAC website or through your clearinghouse (if you use a clearinghouse to submit claims to Medicare). Any provider who submits claims electronically can participate in acknowledgement testing.
What you can expect during testing:
- Test claims with ICD-10 codes must be submitted with current dates of service (i.e. October 1, 2014 through November 17, 2014), since testing does not support future dated claims.
- Test claims will receive the 277CA or 999 acknowledgement as appropriate, to confirm that the claim was accepted or rejected in the system.
- Testing will not confirm claim payment or produce a remittance advice.
- MACs and CEDI will be staffed to handle increased call volume during this week.
Information on acknowledgement testing and how to participate is available in MLN Matters Article MM8858. "ICD-10 Testing - Acknowledgement Testing with Providers.”
OASIS Updates for Home Health Agencies
The Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS)-C1/ICD-9 has been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and will become effective on Jan. 1, 2015. The final, OMB-approved version will be posted on the CMS website soon. The re-hospitalization measures will not be reported in January 2015; they are scheduled for inclusion in the July 2015 refresh to consolidate planned Home Health Compare enhancements.
Contact: Cheryl Udell, cudell@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871