Medicare and Medicaid; miscellaneous amendments--Health Care Financing Administration. Interim final rules with comment period.
These regulations modify the rules pertaining to compliance with a Life Safety Code, participation of home health agencies (HHA's) in Medicare, and establishment and review of plans of treatment for home health services and outpatient speech pathology services. The changes are necessary to implement several provisions of the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1980. The intent of the statutory amendments is (1) to eliminate outdated Life Safety Code requirements imposed on skilled nursing facilities (SNFs); (2) to make it easier for providers of outpatient speech pathology (OSP) services to meet the plan of treatment requirement; (3) to expand the sources of home health services and foster competition; (4) to make it easier for HHAs to meet certification and plan of treatment requirements, while guarding against conflict of interest in the performance of those functions. The amended regulations extend the fire safety code provisions to all hospitals and SNFs under Medicaid as well as Medicare, and to intermediate care facilities (ICFs) under Medicaid. Our purpose is to keep Medicaid rules consistent with the Medicare rules in this area.
D014487:Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.; D006268:Health Facilities / Q000592:standards; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000592:standards; D008484:Medicaid / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006278:Medicare / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012449:Safety; D013066:Speech-Language Pathology; D014481:United States