Twenty-eight states, three territories and the District of Columbia will be the beneficiaries to over $665 million in Affordable Care Act funding to design and test health care payment and service delivery models that strive to both improve health care quality and lower costs, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell announced Tuesday. […]
Category: Medicaid
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained a record $5.69 billion in settlements and judgments from cases involving fraud and false claims against the government in the fiscal year ending September 30, the federal agency announced in a report Thursday. Of that total, $2.3 billion was recovered from health care-related frauds. FY 2014 marked the fifth […]
Following proposed legislation by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate has introduced a similar bill that would correct what some believe to be flaws in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment (DME). Late last week, Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) introduced the […]
While the number of people age 65 and older in West Virginia is expected to increase by 1.5% by 2025, the amount of workers available to take care of that population is expected to decline by 9%, a home care service expert told state lawmakers on Monday. About 16% of people in the state are […]
CareAll Management LLC and its affiliated entities have agreed to pay $25 million, plus interest, to the United States and the state of Tennessee to settle False Claims Act allegations, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced recently. The settlement resolves allegations that CareAll — based in Nashville, Tenn., and one of the state’s largest home […]
The Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) last week agreed to pay about $35 million to settle claims that it improperly billed Medicaid for services related to member enrollment in the organization’s adult day centers. Under the terms of the settlement approved by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, VNSNY must pay a total of […]
State training standards for personal care aides (PCAs) are inadequate and inconsistent, say health workforce researchers. Less than half of states, or 45%, have one or more programs with no PCA training requirements and 22% have no PCA training requirements at all, according to a recent report published by the UCSF Health Workforce Research Center on Long-Term […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its final rule late October for durable medical equipment (DME) payment adjustments. The final rule for calendar year 2015, which is largely unchanged from the proposed rule in July, clarifies certain criteria related to DME, such as methodology for expanding the CMS’ competitive bidding program to […]
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released its work plan for 2015, addressing various issues relating to home health care and hospice. Among the topics addressed are the home health prospective payment system, fraud, health screening, hospice patients’ length of stay in assisted living facilities and the appropriateness of hospices’ general inpatient care […]
Home health care workers’ struggles for better pay and health benefits continues to capture the mainstream media’s gaze, with NPR being the latest news outlet to spotlight the plight these workers face in their day-to-day lives. In an article, NPR calls attention to several home health workers in Ohio, each grappling with affording essentials like […]
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