OASIS: HHAs MIGHT HAVE TO PLAY 'DOCTOR, MAY I?' FOR CODING
Everyone knows it's the physician and not the home health agency that officially diagnoses a patient, but the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services may have taken that delineation a step too far at the OASIS Coordinators Conference earlier this month.
HHAs should check with a patient's referring physician every time they choose an ICD-9 diagnosis code to represent the patient's primary and secondary diagnoses, a CMS official told attendees at the conference that brought together state officials and agency executives for intensive OASIS training. Plus, CMS wants specific documentation of that consultation over the codes that HHAs enter...
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