Sansio Assists Home Health
Customers Manage CMS Changes
DULUTH, MN – January 7,
2008 – Sansio, a leading information services company that offers
web-enabled decision support solutions for the healthcare industry,
reports success in helping its customers navigate through recent Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) changes to the Medicare home
health prospective payment system (PPS). CMS’s PPS system, based on a
standardized set of patient assessment items referred to as the Outcome
and Assessment Data Set (OASIS) was significantly overhauled for 2008,
the largest reform of the home health PPS system since its introduction
in October of 2000.
Sansio’s
HomeSolutions.NET® software, the leading web-based home healthcare
information management system, automates the way home health agencies
collect patient data, manage patient episodes, schedule employees, and
process claims. The scalable, enterprise system supports customers in
46 states and Puerto Rico.
Home health agencies had
less than 60 days from approval by the federal Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) to the changes going into effect. Sansio provided its
customers timely status messaging and guidance through its secure
web-based portal, and updated OASIS assessment forms, which collect CMS
required OASIS data elements, were in production use and customers were
able to properly collect the data to meet the new requirements from day
1.
Sansio took the recent CMS
changes as an opportunity to release HomeSolutions.NET® 7.40
which significantly enhances the way its customers review, analyze, and
process OASIS assessments that drive the revised CMS payment system.
Through the web-based 7.40 Data Validator, customers are alerted to
potential errors and inconsistencies dynamically and are able to address
and track changes to ensure swift, accurate OASIS data and electronic
claims processing. “The new Data Validator takes the QA of patient
encounters and assessment to new heights,” said David Barthel, Vice
President of Homecare for Sansio. “HomeSolutions.NET®
customers not only have immediate, centralized access to visit
information, but are also able to generate compliant electronic claims
with the click of a button. This also lays the foundation for customers
to centralize the validation and processing of visits documented by
either scannable forms, telephony, or with a Mobile device. 7.40 Data
Validator is the engine that drives our Flex Point-of-Service model.”
CMS introduced its new PPS
system in such as way that software developers were not able to use an
accurate testing system to ensure their claims processing correctly
interpreted the new regulations. CMS’s own free tools, including HAVEN
and the Home Health Grouper used to determine payment amounts from
Medicare, were released with issues which caused underpayments to
agencies. A memo posted December 18, 2007 on the CMS website indicates
that CMS will be releasing a revised grouper, HAVEN and associated
pseudo code as soon as possible in 2008. Sansio’s HomeSolutions.NET®
software solution is built from the ground up and does not rely on these
CMS programs and thus customers were not directly affected by these
issues. Instead, Sansio developers were able to put new software updates
in the hands of customers on the fly, a major benefit of Sansio’s SaaS
(Software as a Service) model. “As the changes brought about by this
PPS Reform continue to be refined and tested,” states Barthel, “HomeSolutions.NET®
customers can focus on their business of serving their patients as we
take responsibility for providing timely updates to their data
collection and claims processing system.”
About Sansio
Sansio, established in
1997, is headquartered in Duluth, Minnesota and serves a national base
of prestigious healthcare organizations who deliver over $1B of
healthcare services annually using Sansio solutions. Sansio is the
market leader in web deployed decision support solutions for the
homecare, emergency medical services (EMS) and assisted-living markets.
Sansio web properties and solutions include HomeSolutions.NET®,
GetHomeCare.com™, HealthEMS®, RediPay.com™, and ResiDexWEB™.
