The Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY) announced Thursday it will pay $57 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former executive more than five years ago. On its end, the record-setting settlement allows VNSNY, the nation’s largest nonprofit home- and community-based care services provider, to move on from a long-running legal […]
Category: Medicare
In recent months, the unexpected and rapid spread of the coronavirus has overshadowed home health agencies’ transition to the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM). That’s still true throughout much of the country, especially with new COVID-19 hotspots emerging and the federal government’s top infectious-disease expert voicing frustration that Americans aren’t taking the virus seriously. But as […]
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 […]
Industry experts have predicted a rise in home health bankruptcies amid the COVID-19 virus. But home health providers likely won’t be the only ones affected by tighter cash flows and unexpected expenses. Ultimately, there’s likely to be increased bankruptcy filings across health care, particularly in industries such as skilled nursing and senior living. That, in […]
From a financial perspective, home health agencies nationwide are struggling to provide care amid the coronavirus. Providers are juggling lower patient volumes and a lack of telehealth reimbursement while also navigating astronomical personal protective equipment (PPE) prices and increased low utilization payment adjustment (LUPA) rates. In New York, those factors and others are expected to […]
Mercy Home Health — a Medicare-certified home health agency under the Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic health system — is no stranger to telehealth. Remote monitoring has been part of the Philadelphia-area provider’s game plan for more than a decade — and a key value-add that has helped the agency nearly double its patient volumes in recent […]
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, post-acute care organizations have had to pivot. For Philadelphia-based Mercy LIFE — a Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) organization within the Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic system — that has meant closing its adult day centers and shifting care into the home for its 800-plus participants. Buses usually used for […]
The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) was supposed to be the biggest disruption to hit the home health industry in decades. That is, until the coronavirus took the nation by storm. Just as agencies were getting a handle on the revolutionary new payment reform, they had to pivot yet again to respond to the COVID-19 emergency. […]
Coming into 2020, home health care providers were preparing for drastic changes to the way that low-utilization payment adjustments (LUPAs) were calculated, a nuance of the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), which took effect Jan. 1. However, what no one predicted is how the coronavirus would even further rock the LUPA landscape. Amid the COVID-19 emergency, […]