CMS News

CMS

by | Oct 11, 2023 | CMS, Medicare Advantage, Regulatory

NOW AVAILABLE IN iQIES – Preview Reports and Star Rating Preview Reports for the January 2024 Refresh

CMS just published updated measure for Home Health Outcome Information Set (Oasis) and all HH QRP claims-based measures. These updated measures are no based on the standard number of quarter.

For additional information, please see the HH Quality Reporting Training webpage and the Home Health Data Submission Deadlines webpage. 

 

©2023 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. This article originally appeared in Home Care Technology: The Rowan Report. Click here to subscribe. It may be freely reproduced provided this copyright statement remains intact. editor@homecaretechreport.com

OIG Crackdown on Employees Ineligible to Work for Medicare

CMS

by | Nov 15, 2023 | CMS, Editorial, Regulatory

Dear Friends,

I have some news that may be upsetting. Frankly, that is my intention, to frighten you into action.

In August, a Home Health provider in New York paid an $$866,339.25 fine for violating the “Civil Monetary Penalties Law.”* The Chinese-American Planning Council Home Attendant Program had employed an individual, in connection with the New York State Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), who was excluded from participation in the New York Medicaid program and was not eligible to furnish services under the CDPAP.

Georgia provider Agape Hospice Care paid $250,993.97 in penalties, the specific amount it had paid in salary and benefits to two unlicensed nurses.

If this law is unfamiliar to you, it is the requirement that you may not employ any individuals who are not eligible to work within the Medicare system.*

This is only one example of a new OIG crackdown!

  • Bridges MN, a non-profit with services to the disabled, was fined $150,171.96 for employing a single excluded individual.
  • Vicki Roy Home Health Service paid a $38,000 fine for employing one excluded caregiver.
  • Providence Health System-Southern California, doing business as Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Centers, which includes two hospitals, agreed to pay $141,562 in connection with the employment of an excluded emergency services technician from Aug. 8, 2016, to June 5, 2019. (Note that this person was employed for nearly three years without the health system knowing, as they are required to know, that he or she was excluded.)
  • Joseph Health Personal Care Services, doing business as Nurse Next Door, agreed to pay $32,244 in connection with the employment of an excluded constant care attendant from Nov. 2, 2017, to Aug. 8, 2019.

My friends, the list goes on and on, and these are just the Home Health agencies:

  • Serenity Home Healthcare Services Agreed to Pay $146,000
  • Professional Home Health Care 2: $77,000
  • Chinese-American Planning Council Home Attendant Program: $866,000
  • Visiting Angels of Rhode Island: $158,000

I learned of at least 25 other healthcare providers that were fined under this law. Clearly, the HHS OIG is on the warpath. This is not a regulation you are wise to ignore.

That is why I write you today. I have found an affordable service that performs monthly OIG exclusion screening for you. Doing it yourself would require a dedicated FTE and hours of painstaking work.

I would be honored if you would accept my introduction to the company that provides this service. If the fines I listed above grabbed your attention, you can see that a service of this type is like an insurance policy that costs a fraction of the disaster it can prevent.

The company is called Carosh Compliance Services. The monthly service is called “OIG Express.” I know and trust the founding CEO, Roger Shindell. To contact Roger and learn more about this necessary service, use this link: https://oig.hhs.gov/faqs/exclusions-faq/
Sincerely,

Tim Rowan
Editor Emeritus
The Rowan Report
Tim@RowanResources.com

Medicare Advantage Dominated November News

CMS

by | Dec 6, 2023 | CMS, Regulatory

by Tim Rowan, Editor Emeritus

MA Plans Continue to Exaggerate Patient Conditions for Profit

Medicare Advantage for Profit

As we reported in October (More MA Plans Caught Inflating Patient Assessments, 10/11/23), insurance companies operating Medicare Advantage plans routinely pad the patient assessments that set their monthly revenue from the Medicare Trust Fund. Worse, CMS bowed to industry pressure earlier this year and agreed not to extrapolate the amount of the fraudulent payments, as it does with Home Health and Hospice overpayments (Government Lets Health Plans That Ripped Off Medicare Keep the Money, 2/22/23).

Now, we hear that the HHS OIG has totaled its 2023 audits and announced it found over $213 million in padded Medicare Advantage overpayments so far this year. In its latest semiannual report, covering fraudulent patient assessments between April and September, the OIG said it recovered $82.7 million. Total recoveries would have been higher except for that CMS ruling that prevents the agency from extrapolating payments before contract year 2018.

Will SEC Allow Cigna/Humana Marriage?

Early last month, Bloomberg broke the news that Cigna was in talks to sell its Medicare Advantage business to Health Care Service Corporation, the parent company of BCBS in Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Montana and Oklahoma. Should that sale be approved, it would remove an obstacle to Cigna’s rumored desire to merge with Humana.

Though approval is uncertain — the SEC has squashed more than one similar attempt under both the current and former Presidents — it would create what Axios called “another Titan” that would rival UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health in size. CVS acquired Aetna in 2018. It would also combine two Pharmacy Benefit Managers, giving the new entity control of a third of the market, which would be equal to the market share owned today by CVS.

In 2017, a proposed merger between Cigna and Elevance Health, formerly Anthem, was struck down in court. A proposed merger between Humana and Aetna was also canceled in a federal court the same year. Large, powerful insurers, and the PBMs they own, have come under increased scrutiny from federal regulators.

The Biden administration has already launched a warning shot, indicating it will be scrutinizing private equity acquisitions in health care. In September, the Federal Trade Commission sued private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe after it bought up nearly all of the anesthesiology practices in Texas and then, with competition removed, began to jack up prices. FTC chair Lina Khan made it clear the suit was intended to send a message to all consolidation attempts that might harm patients.

United to Change Prior Authorization Policy

According to a November 27 policy update from UnitedHealthcare (UHC), the payer is updating its Home Health prior authorization and concurrent review process for services that are delegated to Home & Community Care, the payer’s home care division.

The updated policy, which are set to take effect January 1, will affect United’s Medicare Advantage and Dual Special Needs plans in 37 states, a UnitedHealthcare news release stated.

In Summary

  1. Start of care visits still do not require prior authorization.
  2. Providers must notify Home & Community Care of the initiation of home care services. UHC encourages providing notice within five days after the start of a care visit to help avoid potential payment delays.
  3. Before the 30th day, providers must request prior authorization for days 30 to 60, by discipline, and provide documentation to Home & Community Care.
  4. For each subsequent 60-day period, providers must request prior authorization, by discipline, and provide documentation to Home & Community Care during the 56- to 60-day recertification window.

UHC says it will respond to questions about the prior authorization approval process at HHinfo@optum.com

In related news, in its annual investor conference call, the company projected “revenues of $400 billion to $403 billion, net earnings of $26.20 to $26.70 per share and adjusted net earnings of $27.50 to $28.00 per share” for 2024. Cash flows from operations are expected to range from $30 billion to $31 billion.

Tim Rowan, Editor EmeritusTim Rowan is a 30-year home care technology consultant who co-founded and served as Editor and principal writer of this publication for 25 years. He continues to occasionally contribute news and analysis articles under The Rowan Report’s new ownership. He also continues to work part-time as a Home Care recruiting and retention consultant. More information: RowanResources.com
Tim@RowanResources.com

©2023 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

 

 

CMS is Already Hurting Home Care and Now MedPAC Wants to Make it Worse

CMS

by | Dec 13, 2023 | CMS, Regulatory

by Kristin Rowan, Editor

Last week, MedPAC met for their December meeting to discuss “Assessing payment adequacy and updating payments.” Hospice services and Home health care services were each presented separately to Congress and commissioners are set to review the key indicators and discuss updates to Medicare payment rates for 2024.

The findings presented to Congress gave me whiplash.

Hospice Services

  • There is ‘mixed evidence’ on whether hospice reduces Medicare expenditures, but is has important benefits for beneficiaries
  • 2021 saw a 6% increase in hospices, mostly in for-profit agencies
  • Hospice use rates are down overall, but MedPAC blames the effects of the pandemic on death rates and patterns of care
  • Hospice use continues to shift from SNFs to in-home care
  • In 2020, 18.6% of hospices exceeded the payment cap
  • MedPAC recommends the cap be wage adjusted and reduced by 20%

See the full Hospice Services presentation to Congress here.

Opinion

Of the 18.6% of hospices that exceeded the payment cap in 2020, 17.2% of those were also in the highest bracket of hospice providers with stays longer than 180 days. The payment cap is not enough to cover patients who need hospice care for longer time periods, even though the requirement for hospice care is expected death within 6 months. If hospice is intended to care for a patient for 180 days, shouldn’t the payment cap be equal to 180 days of care? If a hospice provider is caring for a patient for longer, shouldn’t they get paid more?

MedPAC is convinced that lowering the cap would only impact those hospice providers who have the longest stays. However, if those hospices can no longer provide care because the payment cap has been reached, it will fall to other providers to continue care, stretching the already overworked hospice nurses even thinner.

Home Health Care Services

  • The Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2018 prompted CMS to implement PDGM and required MedPAC to review PDGM in its first year of operation
  • BBA 2018 changes must be budget neutral
  • CMS issued a $2 billion one-time reduction for overages and a 3.925 percent permanent reduction
  • The decline in the number of Home Health Agencies continues
  • The number of FFS beneficiaries declined, but the per capita use of HHS increased
  • The median Medicare margin (profit) for efficient providers is 28.4 percent, but only 14% of HHAs met cost and quality criteria
  • The median Medicare margin indicates Medicare payments are too high

Opinion

This makes about as much sense as the new phenomenon “dog math.” 14% of all Home Health Care agencies are considered efficient. On average, those who are efficient have a 28% Medicare profit margin. Among 133 industries reporting gross profit margins across the U.S., a 28% profit margin puts Home Care Agencies at number 104 out of 133, much lower than the average or median profit margins of every other industry.1 The all-payer margin is about 12%, making them the second least profitable industry in the U.S., coming in only slightly higher than auto manufacturers. The smallest HHAs have a profit margin just under 6%. MedPAC’s stance seems to be that if an HHA is making enough money to barely survive, they are making too much money.

See the full Home Health Care Agency presentation to Congress here.

 

©2023 by Rowan Consulting Associates, Inc., Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Home Care Technology: The Rowan Report. homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use; further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

CMS Proposes Policy Changes to Medicare C & D

CMS

by | Dec 13, 2023 | CMS, Regulatory

From the NAHC Newsroom

Public comments due January 5, 2024

CMS Policy Changes to Medicare C & D. On November 5, 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the Contract Year 2025 Policy and Technical Changes to the Medicare Advantage Program, Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit Program, Medicare Cost Plan Program, and Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly; Health Information Technology Standards and Implementation Specifications.

Key provisions in the CMS policy changes that are of interest to home health and hospice providers are detailed below.CMS Policy Changes

Behavior Health

CMS aims to improve access to behavioral health care by adding certain behavioral health provider specialties to the MA network adequacy standards as a new facility-specialty type. The new facility-specialty type, ‘‘Outpatient Behavioral Health,’’ can include Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs), Mental Health Counselors (MHCs), Opioid Treatment Program (OTP) providers, Community Mental Health Centers or other behavioral health and addiction medicine specialists and facilities.

Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI)

CMS is proposing regulatory changes that would help ensure that SSBCI items and services offered are appropriate and improve or maintain the health or overall function of chronically ill enrollees. The MA organization must be able to demonstrate through relevant acceptable evidence that an item or service offered as SSBCI has a reasonable expectation of improving or to maintain the health or overall function of a chronically ill. The MA plan must follow its written policies based on objective criteria for determining an enrollee’s eligibility for an SSBCI when making such eligibility determinations. CMS is proposing to require that the MA plan document its denials of SSBCI eligibility rather than its approvals.

CMS will also modify and strengthen the current requirements for the SSBCI disclaimer that MA organizations offering SSBCI must use whenever SSBCI are mentioned. Additionally, CMS proposes to require MA plans to notify enrollees mid-year of the unused supplemental benefits available to them. The notice would list any supplemental benefits not utilized by the beneficiary during the first 6 months of the year.

Guardrails for Agent and Broker Compensation

CMS is proposing to generally prohibit contract terms between MA organizations and agents, brokers or other third party marketing organizations (TPMOs) that may interfere with the agent’s or broker’s ability to objectively assess and recommend the plan that best fits a beneficiary’s health care needs, CMS proposes to set a single compensation rate for all plans; revise the scope of items and services included within agent and broker compensation; and eliminate the regulatory framework which currently allows for separate payment to agents and brokers for administrative services. CMS also intends to make similar changes to the Part D agent broker compensation rules.

Health Equity and Utilization Management (UM)

CMS proposes to require that a member of the UM committee have expertise in health equity and that t the UM committee conduct an annual health equity analysis of the use of prior authorization. The analysis would examine the impact of prior authorization on enrollees with one or more of the following social risk factors (SRFs): receipt of the lowincome subsidy or being dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid (LIS/DE); or having a disability.

Right To Appeal an MA Plan’s Decision To Terminate Coverage for Non-Hospital Provider Services

Beneficiaries enrolled in Traditional Medicare and MA plans have the right to a fast-track appeal by an Independent Review Entity (IRE) when their covered skilled nursing facility (SNF), home health, or comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facility (CORF) services are being terminated. Currently, Quality Improvement Organizations (QIO) act as the IRE and conduct these reviews. Under current regulations, MA enrollees do not have the same access to QIO review of a fast-track appeal as Traditional Medicare beneficiaries. CMS proposes to (1) require the QIO, instead of the MA plan, to review untimely fast-track appeals of an MA plan’s decision to terminate services in an HHA, CORF, or SNF; and (2) fully eliminate a provision that requires the forfeiture of an enrollee’s right to appeal a termination of services decision when they leave the facility. These proposals would bring MA regulations in line with the parallel reviews available to beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare and expand the rights of MA beneficiaries to access the fast-track appeals process.

  • Dual eligible Special Needs Plans (D-SNP)
  • CMS proposes to increase the percentage of dually eligible managed care enrollees who receive Medicare and Medicaid services from the same organization.
  • CMS is also proposing to limit out-of-network cost sharing for D–SNP preferred provider organizations (PPOs) for specific services.

Further, CMS is proposing to lower the D–SNP look-alike threshold from 80 percent to 70 percent for plan year 2025 and 60 percent for plan year 2026. This proposal would help address the continued proliferation of MA plans that are serving high percentages of dually eligible individuals without meeting the requirements to be a D–SNP.

The National Association for Home Care and Hospice will continue to analyze the proposed rule, but    supports CMS’ aim to protect Medicare beneficiaries by modifying policies and procedures that will improve programs under Part C and Part D.

Public comments are due January 5, 2024.

This article originally appeared at https://nahc.org/cms-proposes-policy-changes-to-medicare-part-c-and-part-d/. All rights reserved.

MedPAC Report Slammed for Telling Truth About MA Abuses

Regulatory

by | Jan 24, 2024 | Regulatory

Untitled Document

Analysis by Tim Rowan, Editor Emeritus

P

erennial Home Health enemy MedPAC angered a different group last week by releasing a status report on insurance companies participating in the Medicare Advantage program.1

 

The report details the way in which giant, for-profit, health insurance companies improperly increase per-customer payments by upcoding their health assessment at enrollment, and then slash costs by denying coverage for healthcare services that traditional Medicare would have honored. MedPAC was also critical of the practice of requiring prior authorizations, backed up by utilization review algorithms that are supposedly intended to “minimize furnishing unnecessary services” but which effectively increase denials for necessary care.

According to the report, MedPAC expects CMS to pay MA plans $88 billion in 2024. 

On January 12, a meeting to discuss the report ended in what one reporter politely described as “a kerfuffle.” Other witnesses to the meeting chose to describe it as a shouting match.

“One member, Brian Miller, MD, MPH, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, accused panel leadership of issuing a negative status report on MA plans’ market dominance, saying it had been ‘hijacked for partisan political aims to justify a rate cut to Medicare Advantage plans.’

“Miller said the analysis … ‘appears to be slanted to arrive at a foregone conclusion in order to set up and provide political cover’ just before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services prepares its annual rate notice for MA plans, expected in coming weeks. ‘The chapter reads like attack journalism as opposed to balanced and thoughtful policy research.'”2

Report authors fired back, citing numerous ways MA plans generate higher revenue, including enrolling people who are relatively healthy, known as favorable selection. They then vigorously scan patients’ medical histories and charts to code for health factors that generate higher per-capita payments, known as coding intensity, often spending less on services. Coding intensity is also the difference between a risk score that a beneficiary would receive in an MA plan versus in fee-for-service. Though MA plans skew toward healthier enrollees, MedPAC found that MA risk scores are about 20.1% higher than scores would be for the same beneficiaries had they enrolled in Fee For Service Medicare.

 

Namath, Walker, Shatner and Brokers

Criticism of MA plan behavior did not only come from MedPAC commissioners and report authors. For example, Lynn Barr, MPH, founder of Caravan Health, which was acquired by CVS Health through its acquisition of Signify Health, exposed what the annual TV ads do not make clear, that their 800 numbers go to brokers, not to any one plan.

“This is not the big, lovely, glowing success that everybody says it is. And we continue to create policies that drive people into these plans. Medicare allows money paid to MA plans to be used for broker commissions as high as “$600 to recruit them, plus $300 a year every year that they stay in the MA plan.

“We have allowed MA to buy the market, and that is why MA is growing. It’s not because the quality’s so great. People don’t love the prior auth, people are leaving their plans a lot. Aside from Medicaid, Medicare is the least profitable payer for doctors. And at the same time, we give all this money to the plans. It’s unconscionable.”

Adding to the “kerfuffle” with a powerful anecdote, Stacie Dusetzina, PhD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, noted that even cancer patients often have trouble getting necessary care because of the plans’ limited networks. She referenced a January 7 NPR story3 about an MA enrollee who could not get the cancer care he needed from his MA plan, and could not get out of the plan without facing 20% in expensive copays. In all but four states, supplemental plans that could pick up the difference can reject patients with costly conditions.

“When you are 65 and aging into the program,” Dr. Dusetzina summarized, “you are healthy at that time and may not be thinking about your long-term needs. [If you did], it would push you to think harder about the specialty networks that you may or may not have access to when the MA plan is making your healthcare decisions.”

 

1 A 30-page slide presentation is available to the public at medpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/MedPAC-MA-status-report-Jan-2024.pdf. The complete report is available only to MedPAC commissioners. The charts on slides 26 and 27 show how MA plans learned to pad profits in 2018 and increased the practices exponentially since then.

2 Cheryl Clark, MedPage Today January 16, 2024 medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/108275

3 npr.org/2024/01/07/1223353604/older-americans-say-they-feel-trapped-in-medicare-advantage-plans

 

Tim Rowan

 

Tim Rowan is a 30-year home care technology consultant who co-founded and served as Editor and principal writer of this publication for 25 years. He continues to occasionally contribute news and analysis articles under The Rowan Report’s new ownership. He also continues to work part-time as a Home Care recruiting and retention consultant. RowanResources.com; Tim@RowanResources.com

 

 

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report.homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

NAHC Fights for Home Health on Capitol Hill

Admin

by | Jan 31, 2024 | Admin, CMS, Regulatory

By Kristin Rowan, Editor

The National Association for Home Care and Hospice joined other advocacy groups this month on Capitol Hill to fight against the looming pay cuts from CMS. Some members of Congress joined the fight for “common sense policies” to expand access to care in the home for Americans.

Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE-3), who spoke at the event, decried moves against home health, saying “there are cuts looming that are not based on reality” and “we want to make sure reimbursement policies are reflective of the actual realities.” Smith is also the representative who introduce the “Homecare for Seniors Act,” H.R. 1795, which would allow the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to be used for home care.

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL-7) has a personal connection to home care and spoke about how her mother cared for her father through a series of strokes he suffered. She expressed strong opinions about payment reductions that could see home health lose as much as $20 billion dollars over the next ten years. Sewell called the idea “frightening” and said, “I am a big fan of making sure that my constituents have access to quality, affordable health care.”

The Medicare program has admitted that home health is not just a bringing of great care and not just a more cost effective way to provide care, but is a service that provides dynamic value. Care in the home has decreased overall costs by $3.2 billion dollars just in the small segment of value-based payment model test cases. Patients who receive care in the home are re-admitted to the hospital 37% less frequently than those who do not and are 43% less likely to die than patients who do not receive care at home. Still, CMS is looking at additional pay cuts which bring the total payment reduction down 13.72% since 2019. The costs of everything else have increased in that time. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average cost of living has increased 22% since 2019. NAHC President Bill Dombi said, “Where we’re headed in 2024 is that half of all home health agencies will be operating in the red with the cuts facing them in the Medicare program. It’s not a recipe for continued access to care.”

Dombi, along with many others, is predicting that 50 percent of agencies will be operating in the red after the next round of payment reductions and that without a reversal of these pay cuts we could see the end of care at home altogether with a collapse of the home health payment system.

The advocacy event on Capitol Hill helped raise awareness of the plight of care at home among some policymakers, but more help and advocacy is needed. Please, take a few minutes to click the link below and tell your members of Congress to support the Preserving Access to Home Health Act of 2023.

# # #

Kristin Rowan

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report.homecaretechreport.com One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@homecaretechreport.com

 Please GO HERE to tell your members of Congress to support the Preserving Access to Home Health Act of 2023

NAHC Fights for Advocacy on Capitol Hill

Clinical

by | Jan 31, 2024 | Clinical

By Kristin Rowan, Editor

The National Association for Home Care and Hospice joined other advocacy groups this month on Capitol Hill to fight against the looming pay cuts from CMS. Some members of Congress joined the fight for “common sense policies” to expand access to care in the home for Americans.

Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE-3), who spoke at the event, decried moves against home health, saying “there are cuts looming that are not based on reality” and “we want to make sure reimbursement policies are reflective of the actual realities.” Smith is also the representative who introduce the “Homecare for Seniors Act,” H.R. 1795, which would allow the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) to be used for home care.

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL-7) has a personal connection to home care and spoke about how her mother cared for her father through a series of strokes he suffered. She expressed strong opinions about payment reductions that could see home health lose as much as $20 billion dollars over the next ten years. Sewell called the idea “frightening” and said, “I am a big fan of making sure that my constituents have access to quality, affordable health care.”

The Medicare program has admitted that home health is not just a bringing of great care and not just a more cost effective way to provide care, but is a service that provides dynamic value. Care in the home has decreased overall costs by $3.2 billion dollars just in the small segment of value-based payment model test cases. Patients who receive care in the home are re-admitted to the hospital 37% less frequently than those who do not and are 43% less likely to die than patients who do not receive care at home. Still, CMS is looking at additional pay cuts which bring the total payment reduction down 13.72% since 2019. The costs of everything else have increased in that time. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the average cost of living has increased 22% since 2019. NAHC President Bill Dombi said, “Where we’re headed in 2024 is that half of all home health agencies will be operating in the red with the cuts facing them in the Medicare program. It’s not a recipe for continued access to care.”

Dombi, along with many others, is predicting that 50 percent of agencies will be operating in the red after the next round of payment reductions and that without a reversal of these pay cuts we could see the end of care at home altogether with a collapse of the home health payment system.

The advocacy event on Capitol Hill helped raise awareness of the plight of care at home among some policymakers, but more help and advocacy is needed. Please, take a few minutes to click the link below and tell your members of Congress to support the Preserving Access to Home Health Act of 2023.

# # #

Kristin Rowan

Kristin Rowan has been working at Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report since 2008. She has a master’s degree in business administration and marketing and runs Girard Marketing Group, a multi-faceted boutique marketing firm specializing in event planning, sales, and marketing strategy. She has recently taken on the role of Editor of The Rowan Report and will add her voice to current Home Care topics as well as marketing tips for home care agencies. Connect with Kristin directly kristin@girardmarketinggroup.com or www.girardmarketinggroup.com

©2024 by The Rowan Report, Peoria, AZ. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in Healthcare at Home: The Rowan Report. One copy may be printed for personal use: further reproduction by permission only. editor@therowanreport.com

  • Please GO HERE to tell your members of Congress to support the Preserving Access to Home Health Act of 2023