Entry By: Eileen Bach, PT, M.Ed, DPT
Hello, home care!
4/1/2011 marks the start date of several important Medicare changes for the home care setting – one is the physician face to face certification and the second is the new rehab therapy documentation requirements and time points. Pasted below is a Medicare posting regarding MD face to face requirement. Both of these new requirements are the subject of review and lively discussions at my seminar “Home Health Care: Advancing Your Skill Set“.
Best wishes, Eileen Bach
FROM CMS.gov website
Effective April 1, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) expects home health agencies and hospices have fully established internal processes to comply with the face-to-face encounter requirements mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for purposes of certification of a patient’s eligibility for Medicare home health services and of recertification for Medicare hospice services.
Section 6407 of the ACA established a face-to-face encounter requirement for certification of eligibility for Medicare home health services, by requiring the certifying physician to document that he or she, or a non-physician practitioner working with the physician, has seen the patient. The encounter must occur within the 90 days prior to the start of care, or within the 30 days after the start of care. Documentation of such an encounter must be present on certifications for patients with starts of care on or after January 1, 2011.
Similarly, section 3131(b) of the ACA requires a hospice physician or nurse practitioner to have a face-to-face encounter with a hospice patient prior to the patient’s 180th-day recertification, and each subsequent recertification. The encounter must occur no more than 30 calendar days prior to the start of the hospice patient’s third benefit period. The provision applies to recertifications on and after January 1, 2011.
On December 23, 2010, due to concerns that some providers needed additional time to establish operational protocols necessary to comply with face-to-face encounter requirements mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for purposes of certification of a patient’s eligibility for Medicare home health services and of recertification for Medicare hospice services, CMS announced that it will expect full compliance with the requirements, beginning with the second quarter of CY2011.
Throughout the first quarter of 2011, CMS has continued outreach efforts to educate providers, physicians, and other stakeholders affected by these new requirements. CMS has posted guidance materials including a Medlearn article, questions and answers documents, training slides, and manual instructions which are available via CMS’ Home Health Agency Center and Hospice webpages. CMS’ Office of External Affairs and Regional Offices contacted state and local associations for physicians and home health agencies and advocacy groups to ensure awareness about the face-to-face encounter laws, and to distribute the educational materials.
CMS will continue to address industry questions concerning the new requirements, and will update information on our Web site at http://www.cms.gov/center/hha.asp and http://www.cms.gov/center/hospice.asp.