A recently introduced federal bill aims to dramatically reduce red tape for Medicare-certified home health providers — at least for now. In May, Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez — a Democrat from New York — introduced a bill that would allow home health providers to be reimbursed for services without adhering to the in-person face-to-face Medicare […]
Category: Home Health Care
The coronavirus is expected to drive demand for home health care in the long term. But in the short term, it has yielded industry-wide declines in employment and spending. That’s according to a new data analysis released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) in partnership with the Peterson Center on Healthcare. Specifically, KFF and […]
The health care sector has long had the capability to use telehealth, but it took the COVID-19 emergency to prompt widespread adoption. After three months of the crisis, emerging data is now making the sweeping rate of that adoption clearer. Seniors are among the most susceptible to the COVID-19 virus. Recently unveiled data suggests that […]
Medicare-certified home health agencies have now had over a full quarter to adapt to the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM). While comprehensive claims data is still coming in, a few interesting patterns are already starting to emerge. Among the high-level takeaways, case mixes appeared to be higher during the first quarter than what the U.S. Centers […]
This week saw a few major leadership shake-ups that in-home care professionals should keep their eyes on. First, Lafayette, Louisiana-based LHC Group Inc. (Nasdaq: LHCG) announced Thursday that former CFO Joshua Proffitt is being promoted to president. Robert Williams — an executive joining LHC Group from the senior primary care space — will take over […]
Encompass Health Corporation (NYSE: EHC) was flying high at the beginning of the year. Like most other health care organizations, though, COVID-19 threw it off its intended path. But the Birmingham, Alabama-based company is geared up to return to expanding its business in the near-term. It’s also bullish on new opportunities that have popped up […]
Home-based care providers are finally getting the attention they deserve for doing what they do best: safely caring for seniors in their homes while cutting health care costs in the process. COVID-19 has elevated home-based care’s impact to the national stage, with skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and hospitals leaning on providers to care for more […]
The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) and its unintended ripple effects were supposed to be the dominant story this year for the nation’s 12,000 or so Medicare-certified home health care providers. But the coronavirus has rewritten the script for 2020, throwing most of the industry’s previous projections out the window. While PDGM — implemented on Jan. […]
Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare is delving deeper into the home with its latest offering: hospital-level in-home care. Intermountain is a health system with 24 hospitals, a medical group with about 160 clinics and its own health insurance plan, among other services. The not-for-profit announced a concerted effort to move more care into the home last year, […]
Over the years, training and “upskilling” in-home care workers has been a key strategy to improve retention for providers struggling with turnover. But as the COVID-19 public health emergency continues, providers who are actively recruiting will now have to navigate new obstacles when preparing recently hired caregivers to work in the home setting. Since mid-March, […]