Author

Mary Ellen Conway

Mary Ellen Conway, RN, BSN, is chief compliance officer for US Med and a member of the HomeCare Editorial Advisory Board. She can be reached at [email protected].

  • Accreditation Now

    Maintaining Continued Compliance

    The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires providers to, “remain in substantial compliance with Medicare program requirements as well as State law.” This means that CMS expects accredited organizations to have continued compliance rather than cyclical compliance. Last year, many HME and DME companies had their second triennial accreditation renewal, because so many of them were initially accredited to meet the 2009 mandatory requirement. Now that your accreditation has been affirmed for the next three years, it is the perfect time to prepare for keeping your accreditation compliance in shape going forward. Plan now to better maintain your accreditation, either through a maintenance program that your accreditor offers, or by creating and utilizing checklists that are appropriate at six months, 12 months, 24...

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  • Accreditation Now

    DME by the Numbers

    Re-enrollment in Medicare is often one of those activities conducted during the fall. The industry has been told that CMS is revising the 855-S form that suppliers use for Medicare program enrollment and re-enrollment in order to better align the accreditation product categories that list the DME items pharmacies and suppliers provide. We have not seen the revised form yet, but we are expecting it to be released at any time. Prescribers and PECOS Enrollment It has been three years since the first prescribers were enrolled in PECOS and the system went live. Now it is time for PECOS re-enrollment. Many suppliers across the country found themselves in a quagmire this summer when their routine prescribers were no longer listed in PECOS. As it turns...

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  • Accreditation Now

    Are You Prepared for ICD-10?

    On October 1, the nation will adopt the new ICD-10 diagnosis code set. ICD-10 is the 10th edition of The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, published by the World Health Organization (WHO). ICD-10 codes are “a medical classification list for the coding of diseases, signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or diseases.” Effective through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ICD-10 applies to all HIPAA covered entities—not just those who submit claims to Medicare/Medicaid—including all third party payers. Even if you don’t accept Medicare or Medicaid, you will be required to process all claims with the date of service of October 1, 2015 onward, with an ICD-10 code and for all claims with a...

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  • Accreditation Now

    Activating the Emergency Plan

    Having survived all of this year's ice and snow, we turn our attention toward spring and summer and the possibility of other major storms that can affect us. A comprehensive and individualized emergency plan can help providers to ensure that patients remain safe in their homes with adequate equipment and supplies, should providers be unable to reach them for an extended period of time. Accreditation requires that providers have both emergency and disaster plans.

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