Every finding on record at Nhc/Op LP., A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Nhc

A recertification survey was conducted at NHC Homecare Panama City June 11 through June 13, 2024. The agency was not in compliance with Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 42, Part 484, Subparts A-F, Conditions of Participation for Home Health Agencies. Emergency Preparedness was reviewed during this survey. The agency was in compliance with Emergency Preparedness requirements for Home Health agencies.

Encoding and transmitting OASIS CFR(s): 484.45(a) Standard: An HHA must encode and electronically transmit each completed OASIS assessment to the CMS system, regarding each beneficiary with respect to which information is required to be transmitted (as determined by the Secretary), within 30 days of completing the assessment of the beneficiary. This STANDARD is not met as evidenced by: Based on record review and staff interviews, the agency failed to encode and electronically transmit each completed Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) assessment to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) system, regarding each beneficiary with respect to required information, within 30 days of completion of the assessment. The findings include: A review of the HHA (Home Health Agency) Error Summary by Agency OASIS Report (for the period of 6/10/2024 through 6/10/2024) was conducted during offsite survey preparation on June 10, 2024, with focus on the specific error code, -3330 "Record Submitted Late: Submission date is more than 30 days after M0090 (Date Assessment Completed) on this record". The Summary report covered the period of 12 months prior to the survey date. The error report listed 47 records with error code -3330, indicating that 47 OASIS assessment data sets were submitted later than 30 days after completion of the assessment. An interview conducted with the Office Manager on 6/12/2024 at 10:50 AM, revealed she had reviewed agency validation/error summary reports for the period of 6/12/2023 through 6/12/2024 and found a total of 45 OASIS transmittals with error code -3330 which occurred during this period of time. During an interview conducted with the Administrator on 6/12/2024 at 1:55 PM, she stated she wanted to clarify the issue of the late OASIS assessment transmissions. She reported that OASIS assessments are transmitted at the corporate level and they had experienced a problem with their coding staff (loss of coding staff) which had resulted in a significant backlog in OASIS transmittals. She stated that corporate acted to resolve the issue by hiring a coding company and out-sourcing the task of transmitting the assessment in order to catch up on the backlog. During this interview, she also confirmed 45 OASIS assessments with error code -3330 as reported by the Office Manager.