HCAF: After Receiving Secret Knock on the Door, How to Improve Your Certified Intake Process (1 SN, ST, OT, PT, ACCT CEU)

Home Care’s intake process is no longer simply receiving the information given from a referral source and performing the necessary data entry. PDGM’s devil is in the details. Eligibility requirements, homebound criteria, appropriate referring diagnosis and conditions, recent procedures or injuries, special skilled service needs and clinical characteristics all determine home health periods of care and meaningful clinical groupings and payment categories. After your agency receives that elusive and potentially rewarding referral, does your staff know the critical details to ascertain, the pertinent questions that need answered, the components of a complete physician visit note, and how to communicate all of this to clinical and billing staff? As the other teams receive these details, do they feel empowered to follow-up and request additional information if they recognize a gap in needed details? A continuous feed-back loop should be implemented to perfect your intake and communication process. In truth, your entire team needs to know the signs and signals, much like secret handshakes, to implement a successful intake process under PDGM.