From a regulation and compliance perspective, this year will be a tough one. So are you geared up for the increased scrutiny that healthcare reform, the new conditions of participation (CoPs), and a number of other regulation-related challenges will throw your way?

Most of the challenges that you’re going to face this year are “oldies”, but that doesn’t mean you can relax. See to it that you know these key issues well if you are to keep your hospice claims complaint this year.

Try to watch contracts with nursing facilities

Providing hospice care to nursing home patients continues to be a problem under CoPs. Nursing homes still do not have parallel CoPs holding them to the same regulation which is likely to shoot troubles. Therefore, hospice providers have a lot of burden in ensuring the nursing home complies with the regulations, but they do not have a lot of hospice care near me  leverage.

What you can do:

Documenting coordination of care can show that you’re following the CoPs. Any communication between hospice staff and nursing home staff constitutes coordination of care.

Make an effort to manage the length of stay

Secondly, MedPAC is eyeing patients with a long duration of stay. For patients with a length of stay greater than 180 days, the hospice physician or advanced practice nurse (APN) make a face-to-face visit with the patient to determine continued eligibility.

As per eligibility requirements, the patient is expected to live six months or less if the illness runs its normal course. Good documentation can be the key to making certain your care for long length of stay patients holds up under scrutiny.