The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Chiquita Brooks-LaSure as next administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The agency had been without an official leader since former CMS head Seema Verma stepped down in January. The nomination was approved by a narrow 55-44 margin, with just four Republicans voting to confirm. Those […]
CMS
When President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan in March, he locked in an important payment bump for Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS). Among its many provisions, the $1.9 trillion legislative package raises the Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (FMAP) for certain Medicaid HCBS by 10% from April 1 of 2021 through March 31 […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Monday that it is increasing the Medicare payment amount for administering the COVID-19 vaccine. That could lift the home health organizations that have been able to play a role in vaccinating homebound seniors throughout their communities. Not all in-home care operators have been able to […]
There’s a new name being circulated for President Joe Biden’s top pick to lead the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Chiquita Brooks-LaSure — a former policy official who played a key role in guiding the Affordable Care Act through passage and implementation — is now the likeliest candidate to run CMS, according […]
President Joe Biden focused on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic during his first full day in office Thursday. In doing so, he once again drew attention to home-based care and getting the current “workforce crisis” under control. “Our national strategy is comprehensive,” Biden said during an address from the White House. “It’s based on science, not […]
“Nobody knows what the future holds” has been one of the biggest lessons learned during the COVID-19 emergency. But even as the home health industry plays its part in responding to new infection spikes across parts of the country, it has never been more important to stay ahead of the curve. To remain competitive in […]
In somewhat of a surprise move, U.S. health care policymakers unveiled plans last week to expand the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model, a nine-state Medicare demonstration designed to better align reimbursement to quality of care. Despite backing from most of the home health industry, the HHVBP Model — first implemented in 2016 — had […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved a handful of new hospitals under its rapidly growing hospital-at-home initiative, Administrator Seema Verma announced on Monday. Originally unveiled at the end of November, CMS’s “Acute Hospital Care at Home” initiative is designed to give hospitals “unprecedented” and “comprehensive” regulatory flexibilities to treat certain […]
The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) was supposed to define home health care in 2020. Instead, this year was almost entirely shaped by COVID-19, a point that’s reinforced by the most widely read stories on Home Health Care News. Of the top-10 stories on HHCN in 2020, eight were related to coronavirus coverage. From the first […]
National home health spending soared to a whopping $113.5 billion in 2019, according to a new analysis from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Office of the Actuary published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs. While that figure marked another all-time high for home health care, the U.S. government still spent far more […]
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