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It's been 20 years since Springfield, MO, Medical Centers Hospice Program became the first U.S. prison hospice program, and now there are more than 70 hospice programs within state and federal prisons.
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In at least one way, the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, LA, is an ideal setting for a hospice: It's an encapsulated village in which 90 percent of its residents will die within its walls and fences.
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With an average of 300 new codes, and the development of guidelines that change the way old codes are applied each year, it is critical that your agency keep staff members up to date on coding requirements to ensure that you receive the highest appropriate reimbursement, say experts interviewed.
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All home health agency managers understand the need to market their agencies to ensure success. The use of web sites, brochures, sales staff, and communication with referral sources will produce success, but be sure that you are addressing all of your referral sources in your efforts.
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A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report recommends that Medicare gradually replace its current fee-for-service payment system with a new pay-for-performance system for its 42 million beneficiaries.
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New Orleans-area hospices continue to struggle more than a year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast area.
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California has always been a state with high managed care penetration, but home health agencies throughout the country are seeing the need to understand how to negotiate managed care contracts as managed care organizations become more predominant.
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The initial meeting with families and patients can lay the groundwork for an end-of-life experience that is rewarding to all involved, or it can build obstacles to a hospice referral and obstruct true understanding between the family, physician, and hospice staff.
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When staff at the Hospice of Chattanooga in Tennessee, provide wound care, they work to help the patient recover a sense of wholeness.
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Although contract negotiations differ from agency to agency and from one managed care organization to another, there are some very common "gotchas" for which agency managers need to look.
