Earlier this week, a bipartisan pair of U.S. senators released a “secret list” of nursing homes under consideration for placement on the federal government’s roster of properties with serious quality issues. Maintained by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the list features more than 400 nursing homes that are “candidates” for the Special […]
Category: Home Health Care
Home care has a huge immigrant workforce, so policies restricting immigration may only worsen recruitment and retention problems, providers and researchers warn. Across the board, the health care sector often relies on immigrant labor — especially for the care of older adults. In fact, immigrants accounted for more than 18% of U.S. health care workers […]
A huge portion of existing home health agencies will have to rethink how they delivery therapy services in 2020 in response to the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) and its sweeping changes. But nonprofit and health system-affiliated home health agencies appear well-positioned to weather the PDGM therapy storm. That’s according to recent findings from a survey […]
As the U.S. population rapidly ages, senior care providers are becoming increasingly more innovative to keep pace with consumer demand and preferences. For some, that has meant blurring the traditionally hard lines between senior housing and home care. Among the providers that do not fit neatly into the “home care” or “senior housing” boxes, for […]
Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) is trying to solve the U.S. health care puzzle by piecing together everything from non-medical home care focused on social determinants of health to palliative care designed to improve members’ end-of-life comfort. Communication, culture and data will be the glue holding those pieces together, according to Dr. William Shrank, Humana’s new […]
Nearly half of home health providers anticipate decreasing their therapy utilization in 2020 in response to the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), a payment overhaul from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that is partially designed to refocus the industry toward nursing. Among its changes, PDGM shifts home health payment away from existing therapy […]
JourneyCare adds home health JourneyCare — Illinois’ largest nonprofit community-based hospice and palliative care provider — is expanding into the home health space. To do so, the provider has purchased Northwestern Memorial HealthCare’s home health and hospice programs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Among its offerings, the Glenview, Illinois-based JourneyCare provides adult and […]
The National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS) is calling on the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to loosen home health requirements for new Medicare alternative payment models. In doing so, ACOs will be able to better deliver care and save money, the association argued in a letter to CMS’s Innovation Center. “More […]
The Review Choice Demonstration (RCD) for Illinois home health agencies started on Saturday, with more than three-quarters of providers taking the pre-claim review route. For the most part, affected agencies have expressed confidence moving forward under RCD, an initiative from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) meant to curb improper billing. The bigger […]
Technology is key to helping accountable care organizations (ACOs) coordinate better patient care — yet ACOs still aren’t leveraging health IT to its full potential. That’s according to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG). OIG officials interviewed providers and staff from six different ACOs […]
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