In somewhat of a surprise move, U.S. health care policymakers unveiled plans last week to expand the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model, a nine-state Medicare demonstration designed to better align reimbursement to quality of care. Despite backing from most of the home health industry, the HHVBP Model — first implemented in 2016 — had […]
Home health providers are getting one of their biggest wishes granted. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Friday that it is expanding the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model. First implemented in 2016, the HHVBP Model is currently active in just nine states: Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, Washington, Arizona, Iowa, […]
UNC Health is throwing its hat in the hospital-at-home ring. The North Carolina-based health system announced Monday that it has plans to launch an acute hospital care at home program in partnership with Medically Home. UNC Health is a state-owned integrated health care system based in Chapel Hill. The organization is made up of 12 […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved a handful of new hospitals under its rapidly growing hospital-at-home initiative, Administrator Seema Verma announced on Monday. Originally unveiled at the end of November, CMS’s “Acute Hospital Care at Home” initiative is designed to give hospitals “unprecedented” and “comprehensive” regulatory flexibilities to treat certain […]
Under the Trump administration, federal health care policymakers have long been vocal about the ability of Medicare Advantage (MA) to lower costs and improve outcomes among vulnerable populations. A recent report from the Washington, D.C.-based Better Medicare Alliance (BMA) and consulting firm Avalere Health is now putting hard numbers on that claim, particularly around home […]
National home health spending soared to a whopping $113.5 billion in 2019, according to a new analysis from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs. While that figure marked another all-time high for home health care, the U.S. government still spent far more […]
At the beginning of the month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final rule for the 2021 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. Since then, the rule has drawn criticism for the payment cuts CMS made to home-based primary care visits, a move that experts believe will jeopardize access to care for seniors […]
In April 2019, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rolled out a new suite of direct-contracting payment models, with the goal of accelerating the shift to value-based care. Since then, exactly 51 direct-contracting entities (DCEs) have signed up for either the ”global” or “professional” options. Among them is Huntington Beach, California-based Landmark […]
U.S. Representatives Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and David McKinley (R-W.Va.) introduced the Medicare Sequester COVID Moratorium Act last week. If passed, the bill would extend the temporary suspension of Medicare sequestration payment reductions, giving home health agencies and other providers more financial flexibility headed into an uncertain 2021. Since 2014, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & […]
In April 2019, federal health care officials unveiled a new direct-contracting payment model to accelerate the shift toward value-based care for U.S. primary care providers. The goal of that model — which has 51 entities already signed up — was to bring a private-sector approach to risk-sharing arrangements in traditional Medicare. The U.S. Centers for […]