Budget:
Lawmakers Look To Home Care To Fund Reform
Published on Fri Jan 15, 2010
High fraud profile makes home care providers' uphill battle tougher. As lawmakers in Washington, D.C. continue to battle over the health care reform package, home care providers are working hard to keep the fallout from harming them and their patients. Senate and House leaders are laboring behind closed doors to hammer out the differences in their health care reform bills. Both bills contain tens of billions of dollars in Medicare home care cuts, although the Senate's version is slightly less drastic (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIX, No. 2, p. 14). Thirty-two senators sent a Jan. 11 letter to Senate Democratic leaders urging them to keep the more favorable Senate home health agency provisions in the eventual health reform compromise bill. The Senate version "targets fraud and abuse in the home health industry and spreads the payment reductions over a longer period of time to allow providers to adjust to payment [...]