ADVOCACY WORKS!

If you've been following this blog, you know that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have imposed significant new physician face-to-face documentation requirements along with the dramatic funding cuts... all set to hit on January 1st.

Well, there's some good news to report:

Thanks to the advocacy of our Federal delegation and support from our partner physicians including Board members Drs. Bob Witzburg and Juergen Bludau, last week, CMS announced that they will provide a three month transition period for enforcement of the face-to-face encounter requirements.

I want to emphasize that CMS is requiring, and VNAB will meet, the January 1, 2011 implementation date of the face-to-face encounter rule. The difference is that now we have three months to iron out the kinks in the system and to work with our physician partners to ensure that patients do not lose access to home health care services while we proceed with implementation of the rule.

Our VNAB team has done a fantastic job getting our systems and processes ready for implementation of this rule so I am confident we will move forward internally with minimal disruption on January 1.