The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced plans Wednesday to expand coverage options for Americans who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid, giving states the freedom to develop their own programs for dual-eligible beneficiaries. While the directive doesn’t outline specific opportunities for home-based care providers, the move is still encouraging for the industry, […]
Category: CMS
Health care policymakers on Monday unveiled a new voluntary risk-based initiative designed to reward physicians who keep patients at home and away from hospitals. Based upon the work of previous administrations, the new initiative marks a major inflection point for the value-based transformation of the U.S. health care system, according to Department of Health and […]
Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund — which helps pay for Medicare Part A services, including in-patient hospital, skilled nursing facility, hospice and home health care services — is set to go broke by 2026, Trump administration officials reported Monday. What’s more, if current utilization and financial projections prove accurate, the vast majority of home health […]
With major regulatory volleys such as the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) and the Review Choice Demonstration (RCD) on the table, keeping track of other industry-shaping issues can often feel like a losing battle. For some home health stakeholders, that may have meant missing a subtle yet important announcement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid […]
When the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) takes effect Jan. 1, home health care billing processes will become significantly more complicated. The new model revolutionizes the way agencies are reimbursed, cutting payment periods in half and requiring more detailed claims, among other changes. As a result, PDGM will likely put financial strain on even the most […]
While technology behemoths and up-and-coming startups are often cited as the industry’s top disruptors, it’s innovative payment models and big data that will likely have the greatest impact on home health care delivery over the next several years, experts predict. Additionally, as long as gaps exist throughout the hospital-to-home transition process, further disruption is sure […]
House lawmakers have yet to introduce a companion bill to the Home Health Payment Innovation Act (S. 433), legislation introduced in the Senate in February focused on the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM). That doesn’t mean the home health industry has lost the attention of Congress when it comes to PDGM and future payment, however. Kentucky […]
Lawmakers are pushing yet another piece of new legislation that would make it easier for patients to gain access to home health care, specifically by widening the scope of who can certify the need for home health services under Medicare rules. A bipartisan group of representatives introduced the Home Health Care Planning Improvement Act of […]
Despite expectations that home health admissions in the U.S. would drop in Q3 2018, both home health admissions and utilization continued to increase slightly quarter-over-quarter. Meanwhile, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data shows hospice utilization rose to record-breaking levels in the third quarter of 2018, while hospice admission growth declined slightly. The findings […]
Your article, “CMS Made $3.2 Billion in Improper Home Health Payments in 2018,” deserves a headline that draws readers’ attention to the real story here. Only in the next-to-last sentence does the piece mention the most telling data point — namely, that improper home health payments “plummeted dramatically” between 2015 and 2018 from 59% of […]