This Minute covers the highlights of Transmittal 10758, dated May 11, 2021 with updates to the Medicare Claims Processing Manual regarding the NOA implementation for January 2022.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Monday Minute. Today I have some news that is exciting in the sense that we have this news earlier than was anticipated and that is going to be very helpful down the road. Today we’re going to discuss the Notice of Admission Requirements that will go into effect January 1, 2022. There was a transmittal released on May 11, Transmittal number 10758. The transmittal was to update the Medicare Claims Processing Manual with the details of how the Notice of Admission will work. Please understand that it is obvious already, that there will be more updates to this information because there is information lacking in the first review that we have done. It has confirmed however, what we were pretty sure was true, and that is that the Notice of Admission will have the same requirements as the current RAP, in the sense that you only have to have the order to open the patient and the start of care visit completed. The Notice of Admission is different from the Request for Anticipated Payment in that the Notice of Admission is only filed one time at the patient’s Start of Care, then you file 30-day final claims after that. The Notice of Admission is only filed one time where the Request for Anticipated Payment is filed every 30 days.
We do know, with this update, that the Notice of Admission will carry with it a penalty similar to the penalty with the Request for Anticipated Payment, in that the five-day time period to get it accepted timely remains the same. In this case, again, it will only be for the start of care date. If the Notice of Admission is 45 days late next year, then you’re going to be penalized for 45 days, not just 30. The Requests for Anticipated Payment value is only a 30-day period of time, where the Notice of Admission basically is from the beginning to the time that it’s actually accepted. So technically, if the patient were on service for four months, and the Notice of Admission didn’t get accepted for two months, then you’re going to be penalized for two months, you want to keep that in mind. With 30-day payment periods that begin January 1, 2022 or later, they will have to have a Notice of Admission. If their start of care was actually completed in 2021, there will have to be a Notice of Admission that’s done in 2022 using the first day of the first 30-day period in 2022 as the start date or admission date (fake admission date) on that Notice of Admission. That is where we are going to have to have further clarification as to exactly how that will impact the claims that come after that Notice of Admission that has that fake admission date on it. There are more details on that to come. There are obviously more details on many of the things that will be impacted by this Notice of Admission transition in January, and we will continue to update you but I wanted to let you know the transmittal is out there – Transmittal 10758
Stay tuned to your National and State Associations for any education that will be provided on this topic.
Make sure to register for the Financial Manager’s Conference, FMC21. It will be held in Chicago, August 1-3 by the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) and The Home Health and Hospice Financial Managers Association (HHFMA). We are so very excited that we get to have this conference in person this year. I am a speaker and do have a session that will include these details for the Notice of Admission. We look forward to seeing you there. REGISTER HERE
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