Home Health Care News will be observing the holiday this Thursday and Friday, but we will return to our regular posting schedule on Monday, December 28. Our team here in the newsroom would like to wish our dearest readers a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend.

To tide you over, here are a few happenings that caught our attention this week:

Most Read

Home Health Weighs Risks, Rewards of Bundled Payments—With several bundled payment models already underway and more set to roll out from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), home health agencies are positioning themselves to become preferred partners with other health systems.

CMS Releases Massive Home Health Data Set—As the health care system continues to shift toward coordinated care and value-based purchasing, CMS has released a new data set on home health agencies to increase transparency, affordability and accountability. The data shows services performed by 11,062 home health agencies to fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries, representing more than 6 million claims and $18 billion in payments.

Home Care Workers Travel Astronomical Distances on the Job—Home care workers travel to the moon and back—17,462 times a year, according to a new study. In 2013 home care aides, nurses and therapists who serve elderly, disabled and chronically ill patients across the United States made more than 718 million home care visits and drove 7.88 billion miles.

Signs a Tech Startup Could Be a Good Home Health Partner—HHCN spoke with David Inns, president and CEO of GreatCall, a company that offers health and safety services through proprietary senior-freindly mobile devices, to discover what separates a successful startup and what senior care providers should look for when they’re thinking about working with a fledgling tech company.

Around the Web

Hillary Clinton Proposes Doubling Spending on Alzheimer’s Research—Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton proposed a $2 billion annual investment in Alzheimer’s research, more than double the amount in the recently passed appropriations bill, to combat the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States, The New York Times reports. 

Amy’s Adds

Growing Old, Gracefully: Senior Citizens in the Workplace—The Japan Times reports on senior citizens who remain in the workforce well after 65, a trend that is quickly picking up steam as people continue to live longer and reshape what it means to retire.