Roughly $108.8 billion is projected to be spent on home health care in the United States in 2019, according to a newly released analysis from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary. U.S. expenditures on home health care are projected to hit $186.8 billion by 2027. An aging population, a […]
CMS
Federal health care policymakers have taken another step toward rolling out a required nationwide electronic visit verification (EVV) survey. The 21st Century Cures Act originally required home care providers and state agencies to begin adopting EVV systems by Jan. 1, 2019. EVV requirements are meant to reduce instances of fraud and abuse in the delivery […]
A staple mandatory bundled payment program geared toward hip and knee replacements has saved hundreds of dollars per episode over the past couple of years, recent research has found. The main reasons: a reduction in skilled nursing facility (SNF) reimbursements and an increase in the use of home health care. Medicare policymakers launched the Comprehensive […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing to further expand Medicare Advantage (MA) flexibilities for certain in-home services and supports for chronically ill Americans starting in 2020, the agency announced Wednesday. The move is in line with CMS’ larger goals of broadening the scope of the MA program, which has quickly grown […]
Hospice leaders are, for the most part, encouraged by the move to explore a Medicare Advantage (MA) carve-in for hospice through an expanded demonstration. But several questions remain, they caution, with the bulk of them focusing on whether the hospice benefit could somehow be diluted or lessened. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) […]
The Medicare Advantage (MA) carve-in that many industry insiders pegged as “inevitable” has finally arrived. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) on Friday morning announced it is expanding the MA Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) model, using VBID to test out several wide-ranging updates to MA offerings, including a hospice carve-in set to take […]
2018 was a banner year for the Medicare-certified home health care industry. Big providers got even larger through creative mergers and acquisitions. Admissions and utilization numbers held strong. New telehealth opportunities started to emerge. And, in general, revenues remained high. The upcoming year brings much uncertainty, however, with the main culprit being the Patient-Driven Groupings […]
CMS has released new rules overhauling Medicare’s accountable care organizations (ACO) program. Called “Pathways to Success,” the new policies shorten risk-free periods and offer more regulatory flexibility, including for providing telehealth to people in their homes, among other changes. In recent years, home health companies have become more involved in ACOs, seeing it as an […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published a final OASIS-D guidance manual. The updates are scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2019. In general, OASIS-D changes include the removal of more than two dozen items, as well as the addition or revision of several others. Specifically, the manual provides guidance […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) did not meet its publicly announced Monday goal of launching the Review Choice Demonstration (RCD) in Illinois. RCD is a revamped version of CMS’ widely opposed Pre-Claim Review Demonstration (PCRD) from 2016, an initiative that required home health providers to send in their Medicare claims earlier in […]