Home Health & Hospice Week

The home care industry's high profit margins grab national attention. Home health agencies' chances of avoiding punishing Medicare payments cuts in 2013 have grown slimmer. In its latest report to Congress, the Medi-care Payment Advisory Commission calls on lawmakers to implement three reimbursement-reducing initiatives -- a $150 copayment for Medicare home health episodes, elimination of an inflation update next year, and acceleration of prospective payment system "rebasing" (i.e., payment cuts) currently scheduled to begin phasing in in 2014. The influential advisory body to Congress trots out statistics showing increased utilization and spending on home care services, which have resulted in figures that exceed pre-Operation Restore Trust levels of the late 1990s. For example, there were about 10,900 HHAs in 1997 but only 7,500 agencies in 2000, the first year of PPS after the industry underwent the interim payment system that closed about one-third of the industry's doors. In 2010, there were [...]