Hospice Insights Podcast: What’s the Latest on UPICs? Highlights from Recent Audit Activity, Part I
AGG Talks: Home Health & Hospice Podcast - Episode 5: Understanding Palliative Care: Strategies for Compliance and Reimbursement
Hospice and Home Health Survey Perspectives: A Conversation with Kim Skehan, VP of Accreditation at CHAP
Episode 172: Matthew Roberts and Lauren DeMoss, Maynard Nexsen Health Care Attorneys
A Very “Special” Episode: Amid Controversy, CMS Launches the Hospice Special Focus Program
Grace from CMS: Unexpected Good News on HIS and CAHPS Appeals
This Bandwagon Has a Broken Wheel: OIG Joins the Inconsistent Approach to Hospice GIP Claims
Beyond Hospice: Home Health Agencies Plagued by UPICs and SMRCs
Beyond Hospice: The OIG Renews Its Scrutiny of Home Health Agencies
UPIC activity is picking up, and the UPICs are reviving some old tactics. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske and Bryan Nowicki discuss these trends which include extrapolation, Medicaid nursing home room and...more
In this episode, AGG Post-Acute & Long-Term Care co-chair Jason Bring is joined by AGG Healthcare attorney Charmaine Mech to discuss the latest developments in the palliative care industry across the country. Jason and...more
In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske is joined by friend and industry veteran Kim Skehan. In this wide-ranging conversation, they explore not only the recent survey reforms but the ways in which Kim’s decades of...more
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) devised a “Special Focus Program” to identify poor performing hospices and help them improve through more frequent surveys and technical assistance. CMS would also impose...more
For a variety of unfortunate reasons, some hospices found themselves facing a 4% rate reduction for non-compliance with either Hospice Item Set (HIS) or Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (CAHPS)...more
CMS has criticized hospices for underutilizing general inpatient care (GIP) but has also specifically targeted GIP claims for audit and medical review. In addition to CMS’s standard tools for reviewing GIP claims, such as...more
Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued a Proposed Rule that, if finalized, would extend the application of the “36-Month Rule” from home health agencies (“HHAs”) to also include hospice agencies as...more
AGG’s Home Health & Hospice team publishes a quarterly newsletter covering legal and regulatory topics specific to the home and community-based healthcare industry. The fields of end-of-life and home healthcare present...more
Last week CMS issued a new round of regulatory waivers and rule changes in response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, including its Interim Final Rule with comment period, CMS-5531-IFC. The key changes relax certain...more
As we described in a prior blog post, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) published multiple COVID-19 Blanket Waivers for Health Care Providers. CMS announced another round of Blanket Waivers on April 30 ...more
On April 30, 2020, CMS issued several new and revised blanket waivers for health care providers retroactively effective March 1, 2020, through the end of the emergency declaration. CMS’s authority to grant blanket waivers...more
As part of sweeping exemptions aimed at facilitating all levels of healthcare during the coronavirus public health emergency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been issuing waivers for a wide range of...more
In response to the COVID-19 emergency, effective March 20, 2020 the New Jersey Department of Health and Department of Human Services are requiring post-acute facilities in the State to submit weekly data regarding their bed...more
On September 26, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Department of Health and Human Services published commentary and its final rule affecting how hospitals, including critical access hospitals (“CAHs”),...more
In a long anticipated regulation, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently updated the hospital, critical access hospital (CAH) and home health agency (HHA) conditions of participation related to the...more
Kindred Healthcare. On July 2, 2018, Humana Inc. and private equity firms TPG Capital (TPG), and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (Welsh) (collectively referred to as the Consortium) issued a press release announcing the...more
Among the various payment updates proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) this summer, the proposed payment update for the home health agency prospective payment system (HHA-PPS), published in the...more
More and more states are switching to a managed care model when dealing with Medicaid long-term care patients, a change that has resulted in a loss of services in some cases. Many states use managed care to deliver care...more
Williams Mullen's Long-Term Care Conference will provide health care executives with the latest information on how to mitigate professional liability and regulatory risks; manage employment law matters, including overtime,...more
On November 3, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a Proposed Rule that would revise the discharge planning conditions of participation (CoPs) for Hospitals, Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), and Home...more