The COVID-19 virus has driven much discussion over the best ways to revamp home-based care moving forward. Suggestions as to how to do that have ranged from small tweaks to seismic shifts, from fine-tuning documentation requirements to allowing for direct telehealth reimbursement. While seemingly endless, all of the ideas are valuable, CareAcademy.com CMO and co-founder […]
The COVID-19 virus should spur a new global payment system that unlocks the capabilities of home-based care for a wider range of patients, Humana (NYSE: HUM) executives argued in a new op-ed published Thursday. That payment system would encourage a greater use of home-based care services, allow more patients to be eligible for them and […]
“The future of health care is in the home.” Home-based care operators have been saying and hearing this for years, but the question remains: What does that future look like? And how does the coronavirus possibly reshape that image? Recently, home-based care models have touted their ability to better deal with the COVID-19 crisis, resulting […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has granted further flexibility to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to offer more benefits to beneficiaries during the COVID-19 crisis. For home care providers, that could mean more business opportunity. The Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI) program was announced in 2019 for the 2020 plan […]
The COVID-19 crisis has uprooted the health care sector and done away with most norms that existed beforehand. That goes for the workers who make up the sector, too. One developing trend to keep an eye on as home-based care plays a bigger part in keeping at-risk seniors safe is the migration of more nurses […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the White House announced a new round of regulatory flexibilities aimed at improving care for seniors during the coronavirus Thursday. Home health agencies, however, were largely left out of the picture — again. In its announcement, CMS outlined steps it is taking to increase access […]
Physician leaders from Louisville, Kentucky-based Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) and the National Quality Forum have published a joint article in the New England Journal of Medicine examining the role social, behavioral and environmental factors play in overall health — and why those aspects should be incorporated into future payment models. Published Wednesday, the piece is […]
Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, the Medicare Advantage (MA) landscape looked like a promising business opportunity for in-home care providers. That was, in part, thanks to two major expansions of MA supplemental benefits in 2018 and 2019. But the U.S. is now more than a month removed from a coronavirus public health […]
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) will save far less in the coming years than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected, according to an analysis conducted by Avalere. Avalere, a health care research and consulting firm, estimates that CMMI will save $18 billion from 2017 to 2026. The CBO had projected $34 billion […]
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI)’s new director is Brad Smith, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday. Previously, Smith co-founded and worked as the CEO of the home-based palliative care provider Aspire Health before it was sold to national insurance giant Anthem in May 2018. He most recently […]