Hospice Transfers

The new CMS rule regarding hospice transfers is set for implementation on Tuesday, July 5th.  In case you missed it, the MLN Matters MM12619 was released in February.  The Common Working File will no longer accept gaps of care to occur during a transfer.  This means the claim will be rejected if there is a gap in the number of billing days between one hospice and the next. In order to avoid this rejection, the transferring hospice’s “through date” for transfer codes 50 or 51 must be the receiving hospice’s “from date”.  When gap days exist, the patient is considered to have been discharged from the transferring hospice which will require a new Notice of Election to be completed by the receiving hospice.  CMS specifies the transferring hospice is responsible for the patient’s care up until and including the transfer date.