NAHC Receives Clarification on CMS Policies for Home Health Agencies

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice ( NAHC) has received additional clarification on Medicare coverage policies for home health agencies.

Earlier this month NAHC reported on responses from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on several key outstanding question. In that report NAHC noted follow-up was needed on two of CMS’ responses.

The first question in the report addressed the inconsistency in the regulations and the statute for the face to face requirements for home health certifications. CMS recognizes that the statutory language in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides more flexibility than the regulations on who may conduct the face to face encounter, however, the regulations and manual instructions have not been updated to reflect these flexibilities. This lead NAHC to conduct an inquiry of the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) regarding which policies are being followed when reviewing for compliance with the F2F encounter.

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