Provider-based status’ takes on new meaning

In case it passed by unnoticed . . . the Health Care Financing Administration says it will apply the requirements of its "provider-based" memorandum to branch offices of freestanding home health agencies. Released in 1996, the memo established when home health agencies and other facilities with ties to hospitals qualify as provider-based.

According to HCFA officials, the agency could use the same criteria in deciding whether an independent provider’s satellite office is a branch or a separate entity requiring its own Medicare certification and cost report. So, perhaps hospitals haven’t been the only ones shifting costs?