2011 Homecare
Changes: Strategies for the Future
Arnie Cisneros,
P.T., President of Home Health Strategic
Management
Home Health faces
many challenges as a result of the latest
refinements to the homecare model. Audit
scrutiny from numerous CMS contractors,
combined with sweeping modifications identified
in the PPS Proposed Rule for 2011, will alter
how agencies and clinicians identify and
deliver in-home care in the near future. The
newely revised concept of qualified care will
modify and re-define acceptable protocols for
Home Health: reasonable and necessary
requirements will be the basis for coverage,
and the working definition of how this is
applied to care programs will be required for
claim approval. In addition, decreases in
funding and alterations in case-mix
methodology, both seen in the proposed PPS Rule
for 2011, will increase the need for escalated
clinical control in homecare programming.
