A New Home Health Certification Requirement
A new Medicare home health law goes into effect on January 1, 2011, that affirms the role of the physician as the person who orders home health care based on personal examination of the patient. Effective in January, a physician who certifies a patient as eligible for Medicare home health services must see the patient. The law also allows the requirement to be satisfied if a non-physician practitioner (NPP) sees the patient, when the NPP is working for, or in collaboration with, the physician.
As part of the certification form itself, or as an addendum to it, the physician must document that the physician or NPP saw the patient, and document how the patient’s clinical condition supports a homebound status and need for skilled services. The face-to-face encounter must occur within the 90 days prior to the start of home health care, or within the 30 days after the start of care.
While the long-standing requirement for physicians to order and certify the need for home health remains unchanged, this new requirement assures that the physician’s order is based on current knowledge of the patient’s condition. In situations when a physician orders home health care for the patient based on a new condition that was not evident during a recent visit, the certifying physician or NPP must see the patient within 30 days after admission.
The new requirement includes several features to accommodate physician practice. In addition to allowing NPPs to conduct the face-to-face encounter, Medicare allows a physician who attended to the patient but does not follow him/her in the community, such as a hospitalist, to certify the need for home health care based on face-to-face contact with the patient in the hospital and establish and sign the plan of care. Medicare will also allow such physicians to certify the need for home health care based on their face-to-face contact with the patient, initiate the orders for home health services, and “hand off” the patient to his/her community-based physician to review and sign off on the plan of care. In rural areas, the law allows the face-to-face encounter to occur via telehealth, in an approved originating site.
Medicare home health plays a vital role in allowing patients to receive care at home as an alternative to extended hospital or nursing home care. Additional guidance will be available soon via a Special Edition article on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Medicare Learning Network webpage. Questions and answers regarding this requirement will be available the week of December 13, 2010, via the CMS’ Home Health Agency Center webpage. CMS expects a video training module describing this new requirement to be released within the next few weeks.
By Patrick M. Hamilton
Health Insurance Specialist/Rural Health Coordinator
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Philadelphia Regional Office
