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CMS posts follow-up info for HHAs
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has posted follow-up information for an issue raised in a Feb. 20 open door forum for home health, hospice, and durable medical equipment organizations.
Question : When completing a ROC, do the clinicians mark the number of PT visits in M0826 that was originally on the SOC or do they mark how many PT visits they feel are left?
CMS Response : M0826 is an OASIS item with a single use of facilitating payment under the Home Health Prospective Payment System. Typically, at the SOC (RFA 1) and Recertification (RFA 4) data from M0826 (along with other relevant OASIS items) are used to determine the payment under PPS for the current or upcoming episodes respectively. In addition to SOC and Recert, M0826 is also collected at the ROC (RFA3) time point. Typically, data from this ROC is not used for PPS payment determination and in cases where the data is not need for payment, response NA - Not Applicable: No case mix group defined by this assessment could be reported on M0826. Alternatively, providers may choose to report the total of therapy visits that have been provided during the episode to date, added to the number of therapy visits planned to be provided during the remainder of the current episode. If the ROC assessment will not be used to determine payment, then it does not matter which of the above approaches an agency chooses . While data from the ROC time point does not usually affect PPS payment, there is a specific situation in which it does; that is when a patient under an active home health plan of care is discharged from an inpatient facility back to the care of the home health agency in the last five days of the certification period. In that situation, CMS allows the agency to complete a single ROC assessment to meet the requirements of both the resumption of care and of the pending recertification . When a ROC assessment will be "used as a recert" (i.e., used to determine payment for the upcoming 60 day episode), then the ROC data will be necessary to define a case mix (payment) group, in which case the total number of therapy visits planned for the upcoming 60 day episode should be reported .
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has posted follow-up information for an issue raised in a Feb. 20 open door forum for home health, hospice, and durable medical equipment organizations.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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