Medicare funds – which are the largest payer of home health care services – are not running out quite as fast as previously predicted. After a stronger economic recovery from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic than previously expected, the year in which Medicare will no longer have the funds to fully pay out what […]
Category: Medicare
The traditional brick-and-mortar hospital system is broken, often leaving patients in a condition that’s worse than when they first arrived. That’s according to a May report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). The findings throw further support for facility-based care alternatives, including the types of hospital-at-home models […]
Home health care providers and Medicare-for-all advocates certainly agree on their general disliking of Medicare Advantage (MA). The one problem is that these advocates are also fervently against direct contracting in traditional Medicare. And that is an area where many home-based care providers believed they could enter into new, value-based care arrangements either with the […]
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) have considerably increased their home-based care arsenals over recent years. They’ve also diversified the types of home-based care they offer, and are finally finding ways for it to make economic sense in capitated models. That’s according to the Institute for Accountable Care (IAC), which conducted a wide-ranging study on ACOs and […]
Despite the growing demand for home health services, fraud and abuse guardrails often limit access to the Medicare benefit, a recent Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) report suggests. The report highlights BPC’s recommendations for the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on how to improve home health services for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries. “Given the […]
Compared to fee-for-service Medicare, seniors save close to $2,000 on average in total annual health care spending with Medicare Advantage (MA). That’s according to a new study — based on 2019 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey data — from Better Medicare Alliance. The study features an analysis conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based research and consulting firm […]
With more eyes than ever on home-based care, there are a number of legislative and regulatory developments that will be critical for providers to stay on top of. For providers like Help at Home, which is working in the Medicaid space along with private pay, the short-term gains have been apparent. “If you took what’s […]
Home health operators should dig in even further ahead of the Medicare reimbursement battle coming later this year. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its 2023 proposed payment rule for the nursing home industry earlier this month. In it, the agency called for a 3.9% increase to Medicare payments for skilled […]
U.S. health care expenditures ballooned in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they’re starting to normalize. National home health spending, in turn, experienced a comparatively small decline over the past year. That’s according to the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which published its annual spending analysis […]
Home health agencies have had to navigate several changes since 2020, from the payment mechanics of the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) to the new policies of the public health emergency (PHE). Yet there’s another change on the distant horizon that forward-thinking operators can’t afford to forget about: a unified payment system for post-acute care providers, […]
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