AGG Talks: Home Health & Hospice Podcast - Episode 7: OIG Report Reveals Gaps in Hospice PRF Compliance: What Providers Need to Know
AGG Talks: Home Health & Hospice Podcast - Episode 6: Navigating the Audit Maze: Insights From Northeast Georgia Health System
Hospice Insights Podcast - What's Good and Bad in Hospice Right Now: A Conversation with Greg Grabowski, Partner at Hospice Advisors
Hospice Insights Podcast - What's the Latest on UPICs? Highlights From Recent Audit Activity, Part II
Hospice Insights Podcast: What’s the Latest on UPICs? Highlights from Recent Audit Activity, Part I
Hospice Insights Podcast - Stories of Successful Hospice Leadership: The CEO and Chief Medical Officer Relationship
Hospice Insights Podcast - A Rise in Medicare Deactivations: Tips for Avoiding This Financial Pain
AGG Talks: Home Health & Hospice Podcast - Episode 5: Understanding Palliative Care: Strategies for Compliance and Reimbursement
Hospice Insights: Check the Mail: Are You Getting a 4% Rate Cut?
Hospice Labor and Employment Trends - Get Up to Speed Fast: What You Need to Know About the New Rules Involving Non-Competes and Exempt Employees
Hospice Insights Podcast - A Refresh: What’s New in the New OIG General Compliance Program Guidance
Hospice Insights Podcast - Deal Breakers: Identifying Key Issues Early in Member Substitutions
A Command Performant(s): RAC Audits on the Rise
The TPE Carousel. . . Around and Around We Go
Hospice and Home Health Survey Perspectives: A Conversation with Kim Skehan, VP of Accreditation at CHAP
Year in Review: Key Regulatory Updates in 2023
Episode 172: Matthew Roberts and Lauren DeMoss, Maynard Nexsen Health Care Attorneys
An Alternative to Consolidations: Key Considerations for Management Services Organizations
Stories of Successful Hospice Leadership: The CEO and Compliance Officer Relationship
A Very “Special” Episode: Amid Controversy, CMS Launches the Hospice Special Focus Program
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have released significant updates affecting Medicare payments for 2025. The changes, outlined in two final rules, will impact both physicians and hospitals, eliciting strong...more
UPIC activity is picking up, and the UPICs are reviving some old tactics. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske and Bryan Nowicki discuss these trends which include extrapolation, Medicaid nursing home room and...more
In this episode, AGG Post-Acute & Long-Term Care co-chair Jason Bring is joined by AGG Healthcare attorney Charmaine Mech to discuss the latest developments in the palliative care industry across the country. Jason and...more
In May 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) proposed a series of rule changes intended to help promote the availability of home and community-based services (“HCBS”) for Medicaid beneficiaries. Chief...more
The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized important changes to the Medicare enrollment regulations applicable to hospices and home health agencies (HHAs), including increasing the level of screening that...more
In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske is joined by friend and industry veteran Kim Skehan. In this wide-ranging conversation, they explore not only the recent survey reforms but the ways in which Kim’s decades of...more
For the first episode of the year, our hosts Heather, Matthew and Lauren discuss the top health care issues of 2024. They cover significant subjects spanning from hospital-at-home programs, government regulations, provider...more
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) devised a “Special Focus Program” to identify poor performing hospices and help them improve through more frequent surveys and technical assistance. CMS would also impose...more
For a variety of unfortunate reasons, some hospices found themselves facing a 4% rate reduction for non-compliance with either Hospice Item Set (HIS) or Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers & Systems (CAHPS)...more
CMS has criticized hospices for underutilizing general inpatient care (GIP) but has also specifically targeted GIP claims for audit and medical review. In addition to CMS’s standard tools for reviewing GIP claims, such as...more
AGG’s Home Health & Hospice team publishes a quarterly newsletter covering legal and regulatory topics specific to the home and community-based healthcare industry. The fields of end-of-life and home healthcare present...more
On April 20, 2023, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made ownership data of all Medicare-certified hospices and home health agencies publicly available for the first time. This move is consistent with the...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”), through its Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”), has been intensifying its pursuit of Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) violations by residential care facilities, nursing facilities, home...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on April 27, 2023, that it will publicly release all ownership information of home health and hospice agencies. This move is aimed at increasing transparency and...more
The New York Office of the Attorney General (OAG) recently announced two agreements with White Glove Community Care, Inc. (White Glove). One agreement reached with OAG’s Labor Bureau involved unpaid wages to White Glove’s...more
On November 4, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published the calendar year 2023 Home Health Prospective Payment System Rate final rule, which updates Medicare payment policies and rates for home...more
On August 2, 2022, the New York State Department of Health (the “Department”) issued revised guidance regarding daily health screenings and related policies for home care staff. Specifically, the new guidance reduces the...more
Providers across North Carolina are watching with interest the constitutional challenge to our state’s Certificate of Need (CON) Law and the ongoing saga of a potential legislative repeal of portions of South Carolina’s CON...more
On November 2, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a final rule (“Final Rule”) that advances the shift from paying for Medicare home health services based on volume to a system that pays based on...more
In the first article in our series discussing home health M&A transactions, we discussed the various structures that may be used to combine home health agencies (HHAs) with each other or with other entities. Whichever...more
The Biden Administration’s recent “Path Out of the Pandemic” expands the COVID-19 vaccine mandate covering nursing home workers and will soon reach 17 million healthcare workers at Medicare and Medicaid-certified facilities....more
Among the numerous consequences of the Covid-19 Pandemic is a well-documented emphasis on the home. Work at home. Exercise at home. See your doctor or other health provider at home. Home-based health care beyond the...more
The arrival of spring typically equates to the ‘spring-cleaning’ of your home. In this article, I challenge family caregivers and those of you wishing to age in place to polish your knowledge and spruce up your care-planning...more
On November 25, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) gave hospitals facing another surge in COVID-19 patients more flexibility to care for Medicare patients outside of the walls of their hospitals. In...more
The Calendar Year (CY) 2021 final rule updating the Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) includes increases in the national, standardized 30-day period payment and per-visit payment for home health agencies (HHAs)...more