Following its debut last October, ContinuLink has made headlines more than once. Most recently, the company seems to have beaten its more seasoned colleagues to the punch by offering its 30-plus customers what may have been the first PECOS integration tool for check a physician’s eligibility to make home care referrals under new CMS rules. (more…)
If your home care agency or hospice is like most, you have already deployed or are seriously considering investing in mobile computers for your clinical staff. In this environment, the tools you have to manage office PCs cannot keep up. It is time to learn from the big boys. What do large corporate IT departments do?
Most of them face a PC lifecycle management (PCLM) environment that struggles to incorporate the needs of mobile workers who range much farther than the most distant patient home. They handle telecommuters whom they never see and international sales teams whom they know of by reputation only. Their day-to-day PCLM effort encompasses financial inefficiencies, compliance risks and security consequences that can result in challenges like yours but on a grander scale.
They have learned: (more…)
The Center for Technology and Aging (CTA) is collaborating with the Administration on Aging (AoA) and CMS to fund innovative care transition projects for older adults and persons with disabilities. Grants are designed to expand use of technologies that promote better patient transitions from hospitals, rehabilitation centers or nursing facilities back to homes or other community settings.
According to The New England Journal of Medicine, avoidable hospital readmissions within 30 days of discharge cost Medicare $17.4 billion per year. CTA’s “Technologies for Improving Post-Acute Care Transitions” (Tech4Impact) grants are designed to encourage creation of new programs through the national system of Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRC). (more…)
The next Home Health, Hospice & DME Open Door Forum is scheduled for Wednesday, August 25, 2010 from 2:00 to 3:00 pm EDT. (more…)
July 16, 2010 — CMS Public Affairs Office News Release — The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced a number of changes to Medicare home health payments for 2011 that will promote efficiency in payments, implement provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and enhance program integrity. Included as well is the pertinent excerpt from the FR describing instructions for delivering your comments to CMS. (more…)
– Allscripts to help Central Virginia system share patient data with hospital, physicians and home care
– ATA calls for presentation proposals for 2011 meeting (more…)
Physicians who have not enrolled in the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System (PECOS) or opted out of Medicare will not be able to order or refer Medicare patients for home health services. PECOS is the electronic enrollment database of Medicare providers and suppliers that has come under fire for being difficult to use, filled with outdated questions and riddled with erroneous data. Originally, the deadline to enroll was Dec. 31, 2009. It was delayed to April 5, 2010, and then to Jan. 3, 2011. In June, CMS attempted to move it again, to July 6, 2010, contrary to the intent of Congress, but relented following an outcry from the AMA. (more…)
BREAKING NEWS
Federal agents charged 94 people in Miami, Florida; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Detroit, Michigan, and the Brooklyn borough of New York Friday with defrauding Medicare, the Department of Justice and other federal agencies said in a joint statement.
It is the largest health care fraud takedown since the creation of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, known as H.E.A.T., three years ago. The defendants include doctors, health care company owners and executives, the statement said. (more…)
Altoona, PA – July 13, 2010 – Delta Health Technologies, LLC (Delta) has announced that it will be joining with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), two of the nation’s therapy associates and the industry’s leading best practice research firm to create a Forum that will craft guidance for excellence in therapy for home health agencies. The goal of this project is to establish definitive guidelines and protocols that ensure appropriate allocation of rehabilitation services for each patient in a manner tailored to meet the individual’s clinical needs. (more…)
A new study indicates that programs that include home-based automated symptom monitoring and telephone-based care management improve cancer patients’ ability to cope with pain and depression. (more…)
