Hospice

A local hospice sent us a letter with a contract they say we need to sign in order to receive payment from them. The contract states we have 30 days to get a claim to them and they have 60 days to pay us. We are Nephrologist and do get called into see Hospice patients and have never ran into this issue before. Can a hospice require us to sign a contract? Can they not pay our claims if they are not received in 30 days? Thank you for any input on this...

They can require it

hospices are paid a global fee from Medicare/insurers to provide all care related to the diagnosis that warrants hospice. If they bring in doctors- primary care or specialists, they have to pay them from that global fee. So it is reasonable for them to have you sign a contract to codify the agreed-upon fee.

As an alternative, you can bill the patient's insurance for the renal diagnosis (if it is not the same as the hospice-qualifying diagnosis) since doctor care unrelated to the hospice illness is not covered in the capitation. So if they have lung cancer and develop renal failure, you could bill 585.4 and get paid from Medicare directly.