Every year, home health providers await the release of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) proposed payment rule. While home health providers are likely months away from seeing a proposal, it’s worth examining if what’s happening in other care settings could offer a clue of what to expect. CMS released the 2025 […]
Category: Medicare
Home-based care dealmaking remains in a lull, one it hasn’t been able to shake since the historical M&A highs of 2020 and 2021. “We didn’t expect it to be that flat and that consistent for 2023,” Mark Kulik, senior managing director at M&A firm The Braff Group, said during a presentation at Home Health Care […]
In past years, Medicare-certified home health agencies and Medicaid personal care services providers have been big focus areas for government watchdogs. While there’s still plenty of oversight, the spotlight on home health and personal care providers appears to have dimmed somewhat. Instead of focusing on home health and personal care, watchdogs are increasingly targeting hospices, […]
Staffing shortages remain a challenge in home health care. While that’s true, the overall employment pool in home health care is actually larger now than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which issued its March 2024 report to Congress on Friday. In addition to including information […]
The number of hospice providers enrolled in the Medicare program in four states has skyrocketed over the past few years. The jaw-dropping spike, in turn, has triggered increased oversight efforts – some of which may not be having the desired effect. A similar trend could be happening in home health care in one major county, […]
As the breadth and depth of home health care continues to grow, providers are exposed to an abundance of opportunities. To get a crack at that upside, however, providers will need to overcome and adapt to a litany of challenges. Those that don’t could contribute to the consolidation that the home health industry is already […]
Home health services are a vital component of care continuity. But nurses are less likely to give Black patients, compared to white patients, home health referrals when being discharged from a hospital stay, a new University of Michigan study found. Specifically, researchers found that roughly 22% of Black patients were receiving home health referrals by […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has stated its objective to enroll all of its Medicare beneficiaries in accountable care relationships by 2030. Currently, roughly 13.2 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries are assigned to an ACO. With this in mind, there has been more activity and investment around accountable care organizations (ACOs), including […]
There are significant differences in home-based medical care utilization between Medicare Advantage (MA) and traditional Medicare beneficiaries. Specifically, having exactly one home-based medical care visit was 31 times as likely for MA beneficiaries, at 18.6%, compared to traditional Medicare beneficiaries at 0.6%. That’s likely, in part, due to incentives in the MA program to code […]
The Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) continues to save Medicare over a billion dollars annually. And some of the highest-performing, most innovative Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) participating in the program continue to generate savings by effectively using home-based care. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Thursday that MSSP saved Medicare $1.8 […]