RE: projection of minutes

[Christine Kroll]

Therapy may not be able to work full days on weekends but usually arrangements can be made for evaluations and some treatment for at least one day on the weekend. However, if you want ultra high for a patient you will end up using one or all of the grace days on the 5-day simply because the first day is usually shot with evaluations and little treatment and so weekend or not you would need a grace day. Using grace days is perfectly acceptable for rehab patients that are going to be in the very high and ultra high rehab categories, refer to the 1999 SNF PPS Final Rule for this clarification. So I would not let use of grace days keep you from 14 days at a higher category if the patient qualifies. I know of no one so far that has had an audit by Medicare simply because of use of grace days. As long as you are not back dating assessments there is nothing wrong with using grace days, this was the initial concern from CMS over excessive use of grace days. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 5:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: projection of minutes     What are the implications of consistley using grace days on the five day for ultra high since you can't project minutes? ( P/T and O/T do not work weekends) this is what I was told that is why they project on every five day mds. thanks nancy