Proposed Elimination of Hypertension Codes Could Significantly Reduce Home Health Payments

The Medicare Home Health Prospective Payment System update notice for 2011 includes a proposal to remove “unspecified essential hypertension” and “benign hypertension” from Table 2B of the Prospective Payment System (PPS) case-mix diagnoses tables (401.1 and 401.9). According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), this action aims to negate what CMS refers…