Spotlights
Submit Comments by August 16 – Calendar Year 2023 Proposed Rule
CMS issued a Calendar Year (CY) 2023 Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) Rate Update proposed rule to update Medicare payment policies and rates for home health agencies. See a summary of key provisions. Proposals include:
We encourage you to review the rule, and submit formal comments by August 16, 2022.
- Routine updates to the Medicare HH PPS and home infusion therapy services payment rates for CY 2023
- Permanent prospective payment adjustment to the home health 30-day period payment rate
- Requests for input on how best to implement a temporary payment adjustment for CYs 2020 and 2021, and collecting telehealth data on home health claims
Implementation of New International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) Diagnosis Codes, Effective April 1, 2020:
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has implemented two new ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes, effective April 1, 2020:
CMS finalized a new case-mix classification model, the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), effective beginning January 1, 2020. The PDGM relies more heavily on clinical characteristics, and other patient information to place home health periods of care into meaningful payment categories. One case-mix variable is the assignment of the principal diagnosis to one of 12 clinical groups to explain the primary reason for home health services.
Both U07.1, COVID-19 and U07.0, Vaping-related disorder will be assigned to the Medication Management, Teaching and Assessment-Respiratory (MMTA-Respiratory) clinical group for purposes of case-mix adjustment under the HH PPS. Additionally, U07.1, COVID-19, will be added to a new comorbidity subgroup, Respiratory 10, and will receive the Low Comorbidity adjustment under the HH PPS case-mix system. The clinical group assignment for U07.1, COVID-19, and Vaping-related Disorder, U07.0, and the Low Comorbidity adjustment for COVID-19, U07.1 will be included in the Home Health Patient-Driven Groupings Model (HH PDGM) Grouper software package, v01.1.20, available for download on the HH Grouper Software webpage. It is effective for home health claims with From Dates on or after April 1, 2020.
- In response to the national emergency that was declared concerning the COVID-19 outbreak, NCHS is implementing a new diagnosis code, U07.1, COVID-19, into the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) and;
- In response to recent occurrences of vaping related disorders, the NCHS is implementing a new diagnosis code, U07.0, Vaping-related disorder, into the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM), for reporting vaping-related disorders.
Home Health, Hospice and DME Open Door Forum
For questions about home health payment policy, send your inquiry via email to: HomehealthPolicy@cms.hhs.gov.