How to Certify Your Home Health Business With CMS

A home health agency provides skilled care, assistance, and therapy to patients. Once they have been certified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid(CMS), home health agencies can be reimbursed by Medicare for services provided to homebound patients. To become certified with CMS, a survey must first be administered. Then the home health agency must complete and submit the required paperwork for review. The required paperwork includes physician evaluations, lists of potential patients, and financial documentation.

Instructions

• 1

  Contact the state agency from the CMS website in charge of performing surveys in your area (see link in resource section). Schedule a survey for your home health agency with a local representative.

• 2

  Identify the potential participants of the home health agency. These are patients that will be using billable services provided by the home health agency nurses. Physician evaluations of these patients will most likely be required as well.

• 3

  Gather the business documentation and financial records for the home health agency. New 2011 CMS standards require that a new home health agency have enough capital available to them to support the needs of all patients for the first three months until the Medicare reimbursement would begin. Medicare pays retroactively, so those services would eventually be reimbursed. This new rule was established to deter newly formed home health agencies from defrauding CMS for Medicare payments.

• 4

  Complete the scheduled survey with the independent survey representative and submit all of the required paperwork. Your survey representative will be able to answer any questions that you may have. Wait to receive your notification letter from CMS.