As home health and home care operators move toward the ninth month of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to take stock of what has been accomplished from a policy perspective. Many of 2020’s regulatory changes will be fleeting, but others will shape the future of post-acute care for years to come. That was the message […]
When it comes to malpractice claims, home-based care nurses are often more susceptible compared to their counterparts in other nursing specialties. That’s a fact that has held true for a while, too. Home-based care nurses — including home health, hospice and palliative care professionals — have seen a steady rise in professional liability claims since […]
The COVID-19 emergency has triggered a rise in the use of telehealth strategies to deliver care, especially virtual visits. In fee-for-service Medicare alone, the number of virtual visits delivered each week in the U.S. skyrocketed from 14,000 pre-coronavirus to more than 1.7 million during the pandemic’s peak, according to Department of Health and Human Services […]
It’s not uncommon for patients referred to home health care following a hospital discharge to never start services. In fact, a recent study based on 2016 claims data found that just 54% of patients referred to home health actually utilized it. But a new report from analytics and metrics firm Trella Health suggests that figure […]
WellSky announced Tuesday it has entered into an agreement to acquire CarePort Health from Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (Nasdaq: MDRX), a health care information technology provider. The deal is for $1.35 billion, according to Allscripts. WellSky is an international software and professional services company with clients that include home health providers, hospital systems, blood banks, labs, […]
Charter Health Care Group — a PE-backed post-acute care platform company with multiple locations across five states — announced Tuesday the acquisitions of both Vitality Home Healthcare and Heartwood Home Health & Hospice. The news comes less than two weeks after Bridges Health Services similarly announced a series of transactions at the start of October. […]
The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) is in need of a “course correction,” top U.S. health care officials believe. And part of that may include a national expansion of the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model. Created under the Affordable Care Act, CMMI — also known as the CMS Innovation Center — supports the […]
The switch from the Prospective Payment System (PPS) to the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) in 2020 has posed a slew of challenges for home health providers. Orders tracking is one of them. The slicing of billing periods from 60 to 30 days has raised the stakes when it comes to obtaining signed orders. During the […]
In 2019, Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) decided to reorganize its operations and create a dedicated business segment focused on the home. The Louisville, Kentucky-based health care organization has spent the past several months refining that home segment by fully mapping out its strategy and scope of services, according to its leader and president, Susan Diamond, […]
Hospital admissions across the U.S. fell dramatically in spring with the onset of the COVID-19 virus. That sudden drop, in turn, caused patient volumes to plummet for home health providers that work primarily with acute referral sources. While hospital admissions rebounded in summer, they remain far below pre-pandemic levels, according to a recently published study […]