CMS Updates Home Health Therapy Guidance in Q&A

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has added several new Q&As to address recent therapy reassessment policy changes. 

Most notably, CMS included a detailed scenario to assist home health agencies in determining which visits are non-covered when a reassessment is missed. 

The updated Home Health Therapy Questions & Answers notes that the classifications of Medicare-covered and non-Medicare covered visits refer to how visits would be reported on the claim.

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Visits that are not performed timely or do not meet reassessment requirements are not to be considered “covered,” CMS writes, and therefore are not included in counting criteria.

For the purpose of determining when required therapy reassessment visits need to occur, CMS states that only Medicare-covered visits are counted.

Home health agencies are also urged not to change the number of therapy visits a patient receives based on whether prior visits were Medicare-covered or not.

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CMS also emphasizes that it is important for home health agencies to track Medicare-covered visits on an ongoing basis. 

View the updated Q&A

Written by Jason Oliva