Latest Hospice law Podcast Episodes
On the Road With Your Hospice Team: A Report From Home Care 100
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - February 15, 2023 22:19 - 13 minutesThe Home Care 100 Leadership Conference is an annual gathering of top leaders and innovators in the hospice and home health community. Presentations and informal discussions address the current state of the industry and what will drive future survival and success. In this episode, Husch Blackwel...
Surprise! What Hospices Need to Know About the No Surprises Act
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - February 01, 2023 21:54 - 28 minutesWhile direct patient billing may be less common for hospice patients than for patients receiving hospital or other types of care, there are aspects of the No Surprises Act and its implementing regulations that are important for hospices to understand. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekar...
Hospice Audit Series | Welcome to the Party: Contractor Participation at ALJ Hearings
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - January 18, 2023 22:07 - 20 minutesRecently, there has been an uptick in contractor participation at the administrative law judge (ALJ) stage of hospice audit appeals. This development poses unique challenges and new advocacy opportunities for providers. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske talks with Bryan Nowicki, Em...
UPIC Report Card: The OIG’s Evaluation of the UPICs Provides Insight Into the Future of Hospice Audits
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - January 04, 2023 22:21 - 15 minutesThe Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recently released a report detailing its evaluation of CMS’s primary fraud, abuse and waste investigators—the Unified Program Integrity Contractors (UPIC). In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske talks with...
Is the Doctor In? Legal Considerations for Hospice Physician Contracting
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - December 14, 2022 20:58 - 20 minutesThe hospice physician plays an enormously critical role in hospice operations, from certifying patients as terminally ill to being the hospice’s representative in the community. Just as the physician’s role is critical, so too is the physician’s contract with the hospice. When it comes to contra...
Do You Have a Backup? Building Redundancies Into Your Written Certification Process
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - November 30, 2022 21:19 - 12 minutesThe hospice certification of terminal illness is one of the documents most scrutinized by Medicare contractors, and it is of critical importance since an invalid certification can impact Medicare payment for the patient’s entire 90 or 60-day benefit period. If overlooking any of the multitude of...
A Zero Percent Error Rate: An Inspiring Story on How To Get There
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - November 09, 2022 22:19 - 28 minutesHusch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske is joined today by Mary Kay Tyler, Chief Quality and Compliance Officer of Hospice of the Western Reserve, who shares strategies for achieving the elusive goal of improved clinical documentation. As Mary Kay discusses, you start with what can make the biggest impac...
Strategic Restructuring for the Future | Not Just an Org Chart: Corporate and Regulatory Considerations for Hospice Transactions
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - October 26, 2022 19:55 - 30 minutesHospices are increasingly looking to buy, consolidate or merge to achieve administrative efficiencies and expand growth opportunities. Transactions between hospices present unique regulatory challenges that shape corporate and transactional structures, and often require looking beyond the client...
COVID-19 Hospice How-To Series | The Results Are In: More Wins for Hospices in HIS Appeals
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - October 13, 2022 14:00 - 21 minutesCOVID-19 remained a substantial obstacle to hospices’ efforts to comply with quality data reporting obligations in 2021. Those challenges resulted in a number of hospices receiving notices of a 2% Medicare payment reduction in July 2022. We appealed those notices and won! In this episode, Husch ...
Focus on What Matters: The Importance of the Hospice Election Statement
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - September 28, 2022 21:30 - 17 minutesThe hospice election may be the single most important document for hospices since an invalid form can impact payment for a patient’s entire stay. Especially in light of a recent rise in Medicare claim denials related to the election, revisiting your form now could save you later in time and mone...
COVID-19 Hospice How-To Series | Pulling the Strings: New OIG Audits Scrutinize How Hospices Used Provider Relief Funds
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - September 14, 2022 20:07 - 26 minutesFor the last two-and-a-half years, hospices and other providers have been using billions in Provider Relief Fund (PRF) payments to prepare for, respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) has begun its nationwide audit of providers’ use of PRF payment...
Hospice Innovators: A Conversation with Jaysen Roa, President and CEO of Avow Hospice
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - August 31, 2022 19:13 - 51 minutesHusch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske is very excited to be joined by Jaysen Roa, President and CEO of Avow Hospice in Naples, Florida. Jaysen is a leader of action who is finding new ways to approach and solve the challenges facing the hospice industry. He is leveraging technology to provide better an...
Beyond Hospice: Home Health Agencies Plagued by UPICs and SMRCs
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - August 17, 2022 20:34 - 19 minutesIn this episode, we continue our discussion of home health enforcement trends, focusing on other audits currently troubling agencies. These include audits from Unified Program Integrity Contractors (UPIC), Supplemental Medical Review Contractors (SMRC) and the Targeted Probe and Educate (TPE) pr...
Beyond Hospice: And They’re Off! The OIG’s Nationwide Review of Hospice Eligibility Has Begun
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - August 03, 2022 21:10 - 13 minutesIn a prior podcast, we alerted you to the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) nationwide review of hospice beneficiary eligibility. The OIG has begun sending out requests for records to hospices across the country. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske, Bryan Nowicki and Erin Burns dis...
Hospice Audit Series | And They’re Off! The OIG’s Nationwide Review of Hospice Eligibility Has Begun
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - August 03, 2022 21:10 - 13 minutesIn a prior podcast, we alerted you to the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) nationwide review of hospice beneficiary eligibility. The OIG has begun sending out requests for records to hospices across the country. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske, Bryan Nowicki and Erin Burns dis...
Hospice Audit Series | It’s That Time of Year Again: Quality Data Reporting Determinations Raise New and Recurring Issues
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - July 20, 2022 19:54 - 13 minutesEach July, the Medicare Administrative Contractors issue notices of a 2% Medicare payment reduction to those providers who did not meet quality data reporting requirements. Those notices have been sent. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske and Jacob Harris talk about the issues provid...
Beyond Hospice: The OIG Renews Its Scrutiny of Home Health Agencies
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - July 06, 2022 20:06 - 15 minutesAs many hospices continue to diversify into new business lines, staying abreast of enforcement trends outside of hospice is more important than ever. Home health in particular, is receiving significant government scrutiny. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske talks with Bryan Nowicki ...
Nuts and Bolts of a Repayment Investigation: Keys to Conducting Investigations Under the 60-Day Repayment Rule
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - June 22, 2022 19:43 - 23 minutesWhen confronted with a complaint, allegation or event that implicates a potential Medicare overpayment, hospices have an affirmative duty under the federal 60-day repayment rule to conduct an investigation and refund any overpayment. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske and Andrew Bre...
Hospice Audit Series | Painting the Picture: How to Advocate for Clinical Hospice Eligibility in the Audit Appeal Process
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - June 08, 2022 19:17 - 28 minutesThe core of most hospice audits has been, and continues to be, whether the medical record supports the patient’s hospice eligibility. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske talks with Bryan Nowicki and Zaina Niles about strategies for showing how a medical record supports a patient’s si...
You’ve Got Mail: CMS Physician Outreach and How to Respond to It
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - May 25, 2022 18:52 - 21 minutesThe Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently started mailing letters inviting physicians to one-on-one training sessions about the Medicare hospice benefit. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske, Bryan Nowicki and Claire Postman talk about what these training session...
Hospice Audit Series | Turning the Screws: UPIC Enforcement Tactics and What They Mean for Your Hospice
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - May 11, 2022 20:08 - 11 minutesUnified Program Integrity Contractor (UPIC) audits are on the rise, and the UPICs are embracing the full array of enforcement tools at their disposal. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske and Bryan Nowicki discuss the ways that UPICs can put pressure on hospices and how hospices can r...
Strategic Restructuring for the Future: Exploring Upstream Revenue Opportunities for Hospices
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - April 27, 2022 20:47 - 18 minutesStrategic Restructuring for the Future: Exploring How Hospices Are Using Joint Ventures, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Service Diversification to Transform Change, transformation, disruption: whatever you want to call it, it’s happening in the hospice industry over the next 5 years. It is unque...
Hospice Audit Series | Audit Overlap: Connections and Contradictions Among Audits, Auditors and What to Do About Them
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - April 13, 2022 19:18 - 17 minutesHospice Audit Series Audits are a fact of life for hospices—it’s not a matter of “if” a hospice will be audited, but “when.” The alphabet soup of audits has expanded, from UPICs to SMRCs, CPIs, TPEs and more. With the hospice carve-in to Medicare Advantage, MAO audits will join the list. The re...
Strategic Restructuring for the Future, Insights on Building a Hospice Network From the Ground Up: A Conversation With Mike Milward, CEO of the California Hospice Network
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - March 30, 2022 19:34 - 45 minutesStrategic Restructuring for the Future: Exploring How Hospices Are Using Joint Ventures, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Service Diversification to Transform Change, transformation, disruption: whatever you want to call it, it’s happening in the hospice industry over the next 5 years. It is unque...
Hospice Audit Series: Beyond Part D, OIG Scrutinizes the Hospice Industry to the Tune of $6.6 Billion
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - March 16, 2022 19:38 - 23 minutesHospice Audit Series Audits are a fact of life for hospices—it’s not a matter of “if” a hospice will be audited, but “when.” The alphabet soup of audits has expanded, from UPICs to SMRCs, CPIs, TPEs and more. With the hospice carve-in to Medicare Advantage, MAO audits will join the list. The re...
Hospice Leadership Strategy: Re-engaging Staff and Communities With Story
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - March 02, 2022 20:21 - 46 minutesWelcome to an inspiring conversation on how story can help us reconnect with mission, staff and communities. As hospices face unprecedented staffing shortages and a burnt-out workforce, a key to thriving may be to re-engage with our human essence, which can be found through story. Today’s guest,...
Hospice Audit Series: The OIG’s Impending Review of Nationwide Hospice Eligibility Demands a Robust Response From Hospices
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - February 16, 2022 19:50 - 16 minutesHospice Audit Series Audits are a fact of life for hospices—it’s not a matter of “if” a hospice will be audited, but “when.” The alphabet soup of audits has expanded, from UPICs to SMRCs, CPIs, TPEs and more. With the hospice carve-in to Medicare Advantage, MAO audits will join the list. The re...
COVID-19 Hospice How-To Series: Exploring Answers to Hospices’ Top Vaccination Questions
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - February 03, 2022 18:40 - 31 minutesOur hospice team has been fielding questions from hospices across the country on administering COVID-19 vaccination requirements. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske is joined by colleague Jessica Brown, where they discuss the most pressing vaccination issues and how to navigate them...
Who’s Watching Me? Addressing the Second-Guessing of Hospice Patient Care
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - January 19, 2022 16:57 - 23 minutesProviding hospice care to vulnerable individuals can embroil hospices in a variety of unwanted situations. The emotions surrounding the death of a loved one can cause families and caregivers to question the kind of care provided. These sensitive circumstances can also lead to disputes between fa...
Beyond Regulations: Hospice Business Contracts and Contract Disputes
Hospice Insights: The Law and Beyond - January 05, 2022 15:46 - 27 minutesHospices’ unique regulatory and business environment impacts how they contract with and relate to other private entities. In this episode, Husch Blackwell’s Meg Pekarske, Bryan Nowicki and Jake Harris discuss the many kinds of hospice-related contracts and contract-dispute matters they have work...
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