Hospice Insights Podcast: What’s the Latest on UPICs? Highlights from Recent Audit Activity, Part I
AGG Talks: Home Health & Hospice Podcast - Episode 5: Understanding Palliative Care: Strategies for Compliance and Reimbursement
Hospice and Home Health Survey Perspectives: A Conversation with Kim Skehan, VP of Accreditation at CHAP
Episode 172: Matthew Roberts and Lauren DeMoss, Maynard Nexsen Health Care Attorneys
A Very “Special” Episode: Amid Controversy, CMS Launches the Hospice Special Focus Program
Grace from CMS: Unexpected Good News on HIS and CAHPS Appeals
This Bandwagon Has a Broken Wheel: OIG Joins the Inconsistent Approach to Hospice GIP Claims
Beyond Hospice: Home Health Agencies Plagued by UPICs and SMRCs
Beyond Hospice: The OIG Renews Its Scrutiny of Home Health Agencies
Are home health and personal care workers eligible for overtime? That is a more complicated question than it first appears. In fact, it could be about to change again as certain providers of home health and personal care...more
Rallyday Partners has announced a strategic investment in Elder Care Homecare....more
North Carolina’s Healthcare Planning Section is hard at work on a new State Medical Facilities Plan (SMFP), which can be expected to include a range of 2026 health care development opportunities in counties across North...more
Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) confirmed that, effective January 1, 2025, CMS will pay for acute kidney injury (AKI) renal dialysis treatments at-home at the daily rate based on...more
The merger and acquisition environment for the care-at-home sector, including hospice, home health, and private duty services, has shifted significantly. At the 2025 Financial Summit hosted by the National Alliance for Care...more
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
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster declared a State of Emergency on September 25, 2024, to prepare for Hurricane Helene. On September 29, 2024, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued a Federal Major...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
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) has finalized 2024 home health rules to include application of the home health “36-month rule” to hospice providers. The revised rule will forbid any change in majority...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
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) issued a Proposed Rule on July 10, 2023, that, if finalized, will revise the Medicare Provider Enrollment requirements to expand the current Home Health Agency (“HHA”)...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
Previously relegated to purely civil enforcement, in the last year the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has increased its focus on pursuing criminal charges for anti-poach agreements between companies that attempt to...more
On Thursday, April 20, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released ownership data for all Medicare-certified hospice and home health agencies on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)...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