Alaska Administrative Code
Title 7 - Health and Social Services
Part 8 - Medicaid Coverage and Payment
Chapter 140 - Medicaid Coverage; Facility and Facility-Based Services
Article 3 - Hospice Care Services
7 AAC 140.275 - Hospice care services

(a) Before the department will give prior authorization to and pay for hospice care services provided to a recipient in the recipient's place of residence, the department must receive, no more than eight days after hospice care begins,

(b) A recipient eligible for Medicare and Medicaid must make an election of a hospice, a designation of change of a hospice, or a revocation of a hospice simultaneously for both programs.

(c) The following hospice care services are not paid separately from payments made for routine home care, continuous home care, inpatient respite care, or general inpatient care, as provided in 7 AAC 145.690:

(d) A hospice care provider shall prepare a written plan of care that contains an initial plan of care expanded to a comprehensive plan of care. Before hospice service begins, a written initial plan of care must be completed by a registered nurse or physician in cooperation with at least one member of the interdisciplinary group. A comprehensive plan of care must be reviewed and updated at intervals, specified in the plan, by the hospice medical director or the recipient's attending physician, and by the interdisciplinary group. The plan must include an assessment of the recipient's needs and state in detail the scope and frequency of services needed to meet the recipient's and family's needs.

(e) Nursing care, physician services, medical social services, and counseling are core hospice services and must be routinely provided by hospice employees. Physician services provided by the hospice must also meet the general medical needs of the recipient to the extent that the needs are not met by the recipient's attending physician.

(f) Continuous home care is to be provided only during a period of crisis in which a recipient requires constant care to reduce or manage acute medical symptoms as necessary to maintain a recipient at home. To be paid as continuous home care, a minimum of eight hours of care described in 42 C.F.R. 418.204, adopted by reference in 7 AAC 160.900, must be provided in each 24-hour period, and may be supplemented with homemaker and home health aide services; more than half of the continuous home care hours must be nursing care. If care less skilled than nursing services is required on a continuous basis to maintain the recipient at home, that care will be paid as routine home care.

(g) The interdisciplinary group required by (d) of this section must include a doctor of medicine or osteopathy, a registered nurse, a social worker, and a counselor.