Home Health

OIG: Palmetto failed to collect $545,639 in hospice overpayments

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) is calling for Palmetto GBA to refund $17,513 to hospices and attempt to collect $545,639 in overpayments after an audit of the Medicare contractor’s policy around overpayments in lookback years. The OIG noted Palmetto policies that waived collection for overpayments for a lookback …

Skilled Nursing Facility

Antifungal-resistant yeast infections found in D.C. nursing home residents

The CDC identified 101 cases of antifungal-resistant yeast infections among Washington D.C. nursing home residents between January and April. These infections included cases of candida auris, an infection resistant to all known treatments, primarily Echinocandins, and is cause for alarm, according to the CDC. “Echinocandin resistance is a concerning clinical and public health threat, particularly …

Featured Event

Home Health Coding Summit

Coding is more important than ever before, and you deserve to be at the one event that will ensure you have all of the latest knowledge. Get the latest guidance for accurate coding & compliance. DecisionHealth is happy to announce the return of our annual and much-loved Home Health Coding Summit, to be held August 16-19, 2021 in Las Vegas at the beautiful Caesars Palace.

Private Duty

Q&A: Job-specific HIPAA training

Q: As we look forward to 2021, we’re looking to utilize the most up-to-date HIPAA training strategies. I am responsible for training clinical and clerical staff annually. Do you have any recommendations for job-specific HIPAA training? A: HCPro and TeachPrivacy, among others, are solid training provider vendors. They work to keep their training accurate and …

Home Health

CMS reminds providers to protect Medicare enrollment information

Providers should follow three steps in securing their Medicare enrollment information, according to CMS: Keep your Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS) user ID and password secure and don’t share with others. Only an individual provider, Authorized or Delegated Official of an organizational provider, or Authorized Surrogate may view and update your enrollment …

PPS Alert for Long-Term Care

Urinary catheter care

The use of urinary catheters in skilled nursing is not uncommon. For residents with urinary retention, the use of intermittent catheterization or an indwelling catheter is an appropriate treatment option. In some cases, residents with urinary incontinence may benefit from short-term use of a catheter if they have a stage III or stage IV pressure ulcer in an area that would be exposed to urine if the incontinence were managed with another modality.