The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released guidance on evaluating providers’ compliance with the federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health care workers. Although CMS originally published the interim final rule in November, it posted the guidance for state survey agency directors on Tuesday. Broadly, the guidance applies to providers working under the […]
Category: Medicaid
A new analysis from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that health care spending in the U.S. increased 9.7% to $4.1 trillion in 2020. And home health care, in particular, experienced robust spending growth. The retrospective analysis – which details a truly unprecedented year in health […]
Anywhere from 13,000 to 18,000 agencies make up the highly fragmented home care market. “Whatever the real number is, no one really knows,” Kunu Kaushal, founder and CEO of Senior Solutions Home Care, said last week at the Home Health Care News Home Care Conference. A big chunk of that market belongs to agencies that […]
First it was the COVID-19 vaccination mandate from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Now, it’s the one from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Since OSHA and CMS released their interim emergency regulations requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for certain individuals, each has been challenged in court. On Monday, a federal judge […]
HouseWorks announced Thursday that it has signed an agreement to acquire Connected Home Care, a home care provider that operates in Eastern Massachusetts. The Connected Home Care acquisition comes just one week after HouseWorks’ announced it purchased Atlantic Homelife Senior Care, a private home care provider that operates in Seacoast New Hampshire and Southern Maine. […]
Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) are the latest U.S. leaders to go to bat for home- and community-based services (HCBS), with the pair highlighting caregiving investments in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan during a Thursday town hall. Negotiations over Build Back Better, a package which includes multiple types of […]
Home- and community-based services (HCBS) are a way to fill gaps in care for seniors with complex medical conditions, with Medicaid being the main source of coverage for long-term services and supports (LTSS). As of 2020, over 2.5 million individuals received HCBS services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). Still, there are hundreds of […]
InnovAge (Nasdaq: INNV) went public earlier this year with a $350 million IPO. It has since set its sights on expansion. The largest Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) organization in the country, InnovAge is bullish on its ability to do just that, thanks to both internal confidence and also external, regulatory tailwinds. […]
Access to long-term services and supports (LTSS) in the U.S. remains limited, which currently puts seniors in need in a bind. Their options are often such: spend down on savings and assets in order to qualify for Medicaid, or rely on unpaid family care or other informal services. A new study from the Washington, D.C.-based […]
To keep vulnerable Americans at home and out of riskier long-term care settings during the pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) gave states an unprecedented ability to temporarily modify their Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) programs. But while the emergency waivers issued by CMS helped limit the spread of the […]