The CHAMP program has provided free-to-use evidenced base tools on their website.
This month, CHAMP is focusing on dementia education and they have 26 tools specifically focused on assessing and treating patients with dementia.
Some of the tools you may find useful (this is only a sample, many more can be found on the CHAMP website)
AD 8 Dementia Screening Interview
A brief informant interview to detect dementia that can be used as a general screening device to detect cognitive change with different types of informants. The interview can be done with a family member, other informant, or the patient themselves.
Alzheimer's Disease: Unraveling the Mystery
This easy-to-read book explains what Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is, describes the main areas in which researchers are working, and highlights new approaches for helping families and friends care for people with AD.
Assessing Pain in Older Adults with Dementia (Try This, Issue D2)
A tool for assessing pain with cognitively impaired older persons and information on its use. Published by the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing.
Certified Nursing Assistant Pain Assessment Tool (CPAT)
A quick, easy-to-use tool for direct-care providers to measure pain in cognitively impaired older adults. Originally developed for use in nursing homes, the CPAT could be adapted to home care. (Also download the teaching instructions, provided separately).
Pain in Dementia: Family and Caregivers Guide to Assessment and Treatment
A brochure for caregivers that provides advice on assessing pain in older adults with dementia.
Tips to Enhance Interactions with Dementia Patients
Communication tips from the Alzheimer's Foundation of America to help improve verbal and non-verbal interactions with dementia patients. (print-friendly format available; and in Spanish)
CHAMP also has a great blog that you may want to check out. This months topic is "Getting to the Right Diagnosis: When Dementia Isn't Alzheimer's".
Home Care Software Solutions, Inc. provides integrated home health software solutions with CareSmart AMS software.
Looking for software or billing solutions for your home health or hospice agency?
Check out CareSmart AMS, EDI Smart Reader, Data Smart Online Backup and CareSmart Billing.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
Backup your agency with a trusted industry provider, Home Care Software.
Many post-acute care providers fail to implement regular preventative maintenance for their computer networks. With the complexity of day-to-day operations, data backup may be the last of a agency owner’s worries. But the nature of health care is what makes online backup so crucial - an agency can be completely wiped out by a data loss event.
Your home health patient and accounting data is vulnerable:
100% of disk and tape drives will eventually fail.
An average of 50% of critical corporate data resides on unprotected PC desktops and laptops.
Computer viruses cost U.S. businesses upwards of $55 billion in damages.
Don’t become a statistic. For over 18 years, Home Care Software has provided software, tools, and service solutions to home care providers. With
Data Smart Online Backup, your agency can be assured of HIPAA-compliant data backup. Even if your web-based EMR provides backup, don't forget about other electronic agency data including emails, accounting software, etc.
If you invest time and resources into your agency, you should invest in your backup system.
No matter how capable your agencies IT Department may be, they deal with multiple tasks throughout the course of your business. After a disaster or data loss event, your home heatlh and hospice agency may stop while you attempt to repair your network, or find someone who will. Data Smart Online Backup will save time and help you avoid costly repair bills. With so much on the line, secure your information online.
Oftentimes, shortcomings are discovered only after a major event wipes out significant data.
Only 34% of agencies actually test their tape backups once they’re in place.
Of the 34% that test, more than three-quarters find failures in their backup systems.
- Simple. One-Click File Sharing lets you share files with anyone with an email address.
- Powerful. Our powerful recovery tool keeps an unlimited version history of all your files. This exclusive tool allows you to recover any version of your file from any given date.
- Secure. We use a three-tiered encryption system which encrypts data on the user’s computer, again in transit and finally when at rest in storage.
For more information on how you can protect your agency's data, visit us here or call Home Care Software at 866-355-3164.
Home Care Software Solutions, Inc. provides integrated home health software solutions with CareSmart AMS software.
Looking for software or billing solutions for your home health agency?
Check out CareSmart AMS and CareSmart Billing.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
Disaster Recovery is a difficult but necessary element of any successful health care provider. Though disasters are unpleasant to consider, they are an unfortunate reality of the Internet Age. Think of technological disasters as the inevitable downside to the substantial benefits of managing your business online.
60% of small businesses go out of business within 6 months of losing critical data in a disaster.
Disaster Recovery is the ability to continue work and see patients after a catastrophic event. This includes a crippling computer virus, hardware malfunction or even a natural disaster such as a fire or a flood. Disaster Recovery differs from Data Backup - simply having a copy of your data is insufficient to get your business back up and running should something happen.
Every business needs a structured disaster recovery plan. With Data Smart Online Backup from Home Care Software, you can have tailored backup services to fit your home health or hospice agency. With server backup and recovery, remote office protection, laptop and desktop protection, and file archiving, your agency will be prepared for the worst.
Contact Home Care Software now for a no-cost, no obligation analysis of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan.
We provide industry-specific features for home health and hospice agencies. HIPAA, enacted by Congress in 1996, established standards for the security and privacy of healthcare-related data. This legislation charged healthcare professionals and organizations with taking measures to ensure that their electronic data systems were fully compliant with HIPAA regulations. Those regulations explicitly state that any health care provider, clearinghouse or health care facility that electronically maintains or transmits health information for individuals must establish procedures for backup & recovery.
The odds of something happening to your data are high. The costs of restoring your system are even higher. According to the National Computer Security Association, without having an adequate backup solution in place it takes:
- 19 days and $17,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost sales/marketing data
- 21 days and $19,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost accounting data
- 42 days and $98,000 to recreate just 20 MB of lost engineering data
Hopefully you will never need to use a disaster recovery plan, but if you do, you’ll be glad you planned ahead. You don’t want your customers to think there’s any room for failure – with secure online disaster recovery, there isn’t.
Looking for software solutions for your home health agency?
Check out CareSmart AMS.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
Although the final rule on the proposed ICD-10 deadline change has yet to be published, it is important for home health and hospice agencies to continue planning for the transition to ICD-10. The switch to the new code set will affect every aspect of how your organization provides care, from registration and referrals, to software/hardware upgrades and clinical documentation.
A critical step in planning for the transition is to conduct an impact assessment of how the new code sets will affect your organization. Your impact assessment should include:
- Documentation Changes: You will need to consider the increased specificity of ICD-10 codes compared to ICD-9 codes, and ensure that patient encounters are documented with appropriately comprehensive clinical descriptions. You should:
- Train staff to accommodate the substantial increase and specificity in code sets
- Consider physician workflow and patient volume changes
- Revise forms, documents, and encounter forms to reflect ICD-10 codes
- Evaluate processes for ordering and reporting lab/diagnostic services to health plans
- Reimbursement Structures: You should coordinate with payers on contract negotiations and new policies that reflect the expanded code sets, since they can affect reimbursement schedules.
- Systems and Vendor Contracts: Ensure your vendors can accommodate your ICD-10 needs. Find out how and when your vendor plans to update your existing systems. You will need to review existing and new vendor contracts and to evaluate vendor offerings and capabilities against your organization's expectations. Work with your vendors to draft a schedule for needed tasks.
- Business Practices: Once you have implemented ICD-10, you will need to determine how the new codes affect your processes for referrals, authorizations/pre-certifications, patient intake, physician orders, and patient encounters.
- Testing: Work with your vendors to determine the amount of time needed for testing and schedule accordingly.
ICD-10 will affect nearly all areas of your agency, but with a thorough impact assessment, you can keep your day-to-day activities running smoothly while you transition to ICD-10.
Keep Up to Date
Please visit the ICD-10 website for the latest news and resources to help you prepare.
Home Care Software provides integrated home health software solutions with CareSmart AMS software.
Looking for software or billing solutions for your home health agency?
Check out CareSmart AMS and CareSmart Billing.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
The next CMS Home Health, Hospice, & DME Open DoorForum is scheduled for :
Date: Wednesday, July 11, 2012;
Start Time: 2:00 PM Eastern Time (ET);
Please dial in at least 15 minutes prior to call start time.
Chair- Randy Throndset
Co Chair – Nancy O’Connor, Moderator: Gregory Price.
Open Door Forum Participation Instructions: This call is Conference Call Only.
1. To participate by phone:
Dial: 1-800-837-1935 & Reference Conference ID#: 76228833.
Persons participating by phone are not required to RSVP.
TTY Communications Relay Services are available for the Hearing Impaired. For TTY services dial 7-1-1 or 1-800-855-2880. A Relay Communications Assistant will help.
Encore: 1-855-859-2056; Conference ID: 76228833.
Encore is an audio recording of this call that can be accessed by dialing 1-855-859-2056 and entering the Conference ID. This recording will be accessible beginning 2 hours after the call and will expire after 3 business days.
For ODF schedule updates, E-Mailing List registration and Frequently Asked Questions, visit our website at http://www.cms.gov/opendoorforums .
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services "Open Door Forums" provide an opportunity for live dialogue between CMS and the provider community at large, in order to understand and then help find solutions to contemporary program issues. Such issues may already exist or may be just developing within the various patient care settings impacted by agency regulations. Open Door Forum participants learn from each other's discussions, uncover useful clarifications regarding the different rules and instructions associated with coverage, coding, and payment, and generally become more of an asset to their office or facility's well being. The Forums also proactively engage beneficiary advocates in discussions of the opportunities and challenges associated with supporting access, improving medical outcomes, lowering costs, and improving quality within our programs.
Home Care Software provides integrated home health software solutions with CareSmart AMS software.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
CMS issues final rule on provider identification number
Providers and suppliers who submit claims to Medicaid and Medicare must include an identification number on enrollment applications and payment claims, according to a final rule.
In a regulation that's effective June 26, the inclusion of a National Provider Identifier — which is a 10-digit provider identification number — will save Medicare $1.6 billion over 10 years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services estimates. The NIP, which also is required in HIPAA transactions, is used to verify certification as a means of curbing Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse.
While most providers already have an NPI, CMS said the savings estimate was calculated based on that a small number of patients would go to doctors without enrollment numbers, and therefore won't receive referrals for items like durable medical equipment.
Click here to read the full rule.
CMS Names Top 10 Survey Deficiencies
During the National Association of Home Care and Hospice’s (NAHC) March on Washington and Law Symposium, CMS representatives took part in a panel to discuss regulatory and policy initiatives. Key points discussed included payment policy, survey and certification, and medical review activities in homecare.
Of particular interest to us was that according to a CMS representative, the top 10 home health survey deficiencies, with their associated G-tags, are:
- Written Plan of Care established & periodically reviewed (G158)
- Plan of Care covers diagnosis, required services, visits, etc. (G159)
- Record with past/current findings maintained for all patients (G236)
- Assessment includes review of all medications (G337)
- Compliance with accepted professional standards/principles (G121)
- Supervisory visits if skilled care no less than once every 2 weeks (G229)
- Coordination of Patient Services (G143)
- Skilled Nursing Services furnished in accordance with Plan of Care (G170)
- RN prepares notes, coordinates, informs MD, other staff of changes (G176)
- Drugs and treatment administered only as ordered by physician (G165)
Most of these deficiencies are not a surprise to homecare providers. For example, plan of care deficiencies have long been prevalent in homecare. The most troublesome thing is that many of these top 10 deficiencies are repeated, or recurrent, and can be prevented. This is further validation that agencies must put compliance with the Conditions of Participation on their priority list sooner rather than later.
From the MLN: “Home Health Prospective Payment System” Fact Sheet Revised - The “Home Health Prospective Payment System” fact sheet (ICN 006816) has been revised and is now available in downloadable format. It includes the following information: background, consolidated billing requirements, criteria that must be met to qualify for home health services, coverage of home health services, elements of the HH PPS, updates to the HH PPS, and healthcare quality.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
The billing processes for home health, hospice and physicians are becoming increasingly more complicated. Implementing best practices in your office will provide the framework for successful billing.
1. To avoid reimbursement delays, utilize a variety of resources to check the status of claims.
Immediate access of payer websites, payer portals and DDEs, as well as making telephone calls, all enable you to identify claims issues much sooner. Checking claims response files on a daily basis ensures that any rejection is corrected and/or rebilled by the next business day.
2. Implement a “Billing Recovery” plan.
It is important to track down errant claims and get them back in the queue for processing so you can be compensated for your services. Performing weekly reports will allow you to check if there are any missing charges resulting in lost revenue. You should also focus on outstanding A/R for the previous twelve months, keeping timely filing rules in mind.
3. Create and review billing reports.
Agencies should review monthly A/R reports to determine the status of claims. One very important report, A/R Aging, shows how much current revenue there is versus how much revenue is outstanding & for how long. The A/R Aging report should be monitored regularly, with actions being taken when necessary so the charges can be paid as soon as possible.
4. Educate your billing staff.
A knowledgeable billing staff can go a long way in making sure you bill accurately and on time. Regular training and education for billers will keep them up to date on the latest regulations and processes. Reach out to state and national home health and hospice associations for classes and trainings.
CareSmart Billing provides billing services to home health, hospice agencies and physicians across the country, helping them reduce overhead costs and relieving them of the burden of in-house billing.
Having Trouble With Rejected Claims? We Can Help.
Billing is one of the greatest drains on home health, hospice agencies and physicians. It takes up valuable time and requires highly skilled employees that are often hard to find and even harder to keep.
CareSmart Billing experts help relieve the administrative and technical burdens of in-house billing at a highly competitive price. Our sole focus is on home health, hospice and physician billing. Our experts receive continual education on regulations, rules and best practices. As a result of this experience and education, you will have fewer denied and rejected claims, allowing you to get paid more quickly and accurately.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has just scheduled the dates for two training webinars to help hospices prepare for mandatory Hospice Quality Reporting Program requirements, including data collection during the final quarter of calendar year 2012 (Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, 2012) and data submission in 2013.
The webinars will contain identical content and will be conducted on:
- April 11, 2012 from 1-2:30 pm EST, and
- April 19, 2012 from 3-4:30 pm EST
The webinars will be recorded and will be made available along with associated slides after the trainings.
The webinars will cover the:
- Structural/QAPI measure, and
- NQF #0209 Pain Measure
These measures are required for data collection in 2012, data submission in 2013, and will impact hospice’s annual payment update for FY 2014.
Directions on how to register for the webinar will be posted on the
Hospice Quality Reporting -- Spotlight and Announcements page by the end of March.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
For security purposes, new password rule changes that apply to J11 Part A, J11 HHH, and LA & MS Part A Direct Data Entry (DDE) passwords will be effective March 12, 2012. The new password rules, which will enhance password security, will take effect the first time you change your current password after this date. Effective March 12, 2012, your password must include the following:
- Eight characters
- At least one upper case alpha character
- At least one lower case alpha character
- At least one of the following special characters - @, #, $
- At least one numeric character
You may continue to use your current password until you are prompted to change it. When you change your DDE password after this change is implemented, you will be required to change at least four of the eight characters in your previous password. Also, you will not be allowed to reuse your prior 12 passwords. If you have questions about the DDE password changes, please contact the Technology Support Center at (866) 749-4301.
last updated on 03/07/2012
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2011 Home Care Software Solutions. All rights reserved.