CMS Appoints New Chief Medical Officer

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a number of new leadership appointments on Tuesday. The agency’s leadership shakeup includes naming a new chief medical officer, a role that had been vacant since Dr. Kate Goodrich joined Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) in March. Dr. Lee Fleisher will take over as CMS’s CMO […]

Nursing Home Company Sees Free In-Home Care as Vital to Future Success

Skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) have traditionally strayed away from providing care in the home. But as the popularity of community-based care continues to rise, that’s changing — and the lines between different post-acute service providers are blurring. Take Lorien Health Services, for example. Ellicott City, Maryland-based Lorien offers a range of services from skilled nursing […]

OIG: Home Health Surveyors Need More Accurate Patient Information

Home health surveyors select patients for review using lists supplied by home health agencies (HHAs), but some of the lists are missing information, a new report indicates. Of the 28 HHA-supplied rosters reviewed by the Department of Health & Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG), nine were incomplete. Each of the incomplete rosters […]

Addus to Buy New Mexico Home Health Provider for $40M

Addus HomeCare (Nasdaq: ADUS) has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Ambercare Corporation, which provides personal care, hospice and home health services, for the purchase price of $40 million. Ambercare, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, generated revenue of approximately $57 million in 2017. Ambercare serves roughly 2,600 consumers through 15 locations located across New Mexico. The […]

Home Care Provider Welcomes Billion-Dollar VA Telehealth Push

Progress continues on a major effort to increase telehealth at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which is good news for home care providers that serve this client population. However, even if the VA’s telehealth initiatives prove to be successful, they might not change the game for expanding telehealth more broadly. In early 2017, as […]

Home Infusion Fix Trapped by Deadlocked Congress

Home infusion providers were hoping to get a reimbursement provision through the minefield of the House and Senate, but were ultimately unsuccessful in doing so before the government shut down at 12 a.m. on Jan. 20. Though the Medicare Home Infusion Therapy Access Act (HI Therapy Access Act) has bipartisan support, it needs to be passed […]

Caregiver Activist Seizes Golden Globes Moment

Ai-jen Poo, who advocates for domestic workers from nannies to home heath aides, recently attended the Golden Globes as Meryl Streep’s plus-one. Poo is the executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the recipient of the 2014 MacArthur “genius” grant and the co-creator of the Caring Across Generations campaign. The National Domestic Workers Alliance advocates for domestic […]

Nearly 100% of Caregivers Ready to Leave Jobs At Any Time

The competition for labor is old news for many home care agencies, but the number of workers who are ready to jump ship might be surprising even to industry veterans. Specifically, 65% of caregivers are “always looking for a better job,” while 97% are open to a job opportunity at any given time, according to […]

Florida Keeps Ranking As Top Retirement Destination

Florida topped out as the No. 1 state to retire in WalletHub’s annual ranking for 2018. The Sunshine State also held the No. 1 spot in 2017. The “2018’s Best & Worst States to Retire” report compared all 50 U.S. states across 41 indicators, spanning the cost of in-home care, life expectancy and cost of living, among other […]

RAISE Family Caregivers Act Passes Congress

The Recognize, Assist, Include, Support and Engage Family Caregivers Act, or the RAISE Family Caregivers Act, passed the Senate on Jan. 9 and is headed to President Donald Trump for his signature. The act is aimed at identifying recommended actions for health care providers, long-term services and supports (LTSS) providers, state and local governments and existing federal programs […]