As the U.S. population ages, demand for hospice care is escalating. If your agency, facility or practice offers pain management and other programs for patients with terminal illnesses, you face particularly difficult issues relating to administration of comfort as care for both patients and their care-givers.
Both opportunities and challenges await hospice providers and agency operators as quality of care standards change and reimbursement policies shift. To help you sail across the hurdles – whether they are new hospice guidelines, relevant ICD-10 coding updates, hospice billing and compliance issues, documentation loopholes, and claim denials – you need a source of education and information you can trust.
AudioEducator provides the best hospice training and education from seasoned experts in the industry. Our programs offer the strategies and knowledge you need to keep your hospice on the straight and narrow path, so that your cash flow is steady and your compliance worries are lessened.
Handling compliance challenges such as CMS’s latest updates to the Hospice Quality Reporting Requirements, surveys and the risk of deficiency reports has become a way of life for companies and workers in this industry – the complexities of Medicare Conditions of Participation (CoPs) alone can leave even the most diligent staff with the nagging feeling that they’re missing something!
Our programs address all the bases you need covered in your hospice program, facility or practice:
Palliative care is expanding beyond its traditional application to terminally ill patients. Home health and hospice providers and facilities are finding that chronically ill patients can benefit from palliative care, and there is evidence that it can reduce hospitalizations and emergency room utilization.
Because all patients who are candidates for palliative care don’t fit into one mold, it can be difficult to create proper business models and compliance programs around their care. Avoiding fraud and abuse issues, determining the type of service, and ensuring proper licensing are just some of the issues palliative care provider face.
Other common palliative care compliance issues include:
Like all healthcare providers, hospice and palliative care professionals must ensure they are educated on the most recent coding and billing requirements and best practices. From Medicare and Medicaid regulations to private payers’ policies, hospice billing training is a must. Your practice or facility should be trained on the latest in:
Hospice ICD-10 coding is one of the most important compliance areas for providers and facilities in this industry. Your staff needs to learn about the updates that will become effective in October and apply for the following year, and there are always changes, deletions and additions. Training in the following is key to receiving all the reimbursements you’re due:
In today’s environment of oversight and audits, it is more important than ever that all hospice patient records include thorough and complete justification for the Medicare hospice benefit from day one through the day of death or discharge from the hospice program. This includes not only qualifying for the hospice benefit initially, but during changes in the level of care needed as the patient may need to use routine home care, general inpatient care, and/or respite care.
Audit activity only seems to be increasing – your practice or facility should be familiar with:
Hospice training can help you tackle the tight spots and steer past compliance challenges and claim denials. Learn how to identify the deficiencies in your facility with real-life examples, and arm yourself with strategies to deal with them effectively to get the reimbursement you rightfully deserve.
AudioEducator’s hospice training programs:
Don’t forget to check out our annual Coding Updates conference, and our AudioEducator Blog features regular updates on hospice and other healthcare compliance topics.
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