Hospice Addendum

September 20, 2020

For Hospice elections beginning on or after October 1, 2020, the Hospice must provide notification of the individual's (or representative's) right to receive an election statement addendum if there are conditions, items, services, and drugs the hospice has determined to be unrelated to the individual's terminal illness and related conditions and would not be covered by the hospice.

With a Hospice Electronic Health Record (EHR) this task can be simple. The EHR should record all the related and unrelated conditions and services. The hard part is making sure that the written notice includes the required content as specified by Medicare (see sample notice).

This tutorial will show you the steps to enter the required information and how to print the Patient Notification of Hospice Non-Covered Items, Services, and Drugs. We will be using Digital Physician's Hospice EHR.

FIRST STEP: include all conditions contributing to the terminal illness.
When a patient is admitted to your services (new episode of care), the form requires entry of the "Terminal Conditions." Make sure to include all diagnoses and conditions that will be addressed in the Plan of Care. To update an existing record, go to the patient's chart, then click on the "Episodes" button and then the "Pencil icon" to edit the record.

SECOND STEP: add conditions unrelated to the terminal illness.
The Plan of Care in the patient chart has a section titled "Unrelated to the Terminal Illness." This is the section where all conditions should be listed. Only include diagnoses and conditions that require interventions (any items, services, and drugs).

THIRD STEP: add a reason for each non-covered item.
When adding an item, service or drug that is unrelated to the terminal diagnosis, make sure to select "No" for the question "Hospice Related." Then an area named "Reason for Non-coverage" is available to enter the clinical reason for the non-covered status.

FINALLY: to print the notification, open the patient's chart and click the "up" arrow next to print and select "Notice of Non-Covered Items."

If this solution sounds useful to you, sign up for a free trial of Digital Physician's Hospice Telemedicine and Electronic Health Record (www.digitalphysician.com/signup).