Home Health & Hospice Week

HHAs served by new MACs are in for tough times, expert predicts. The Medicare program's push for contracting reform will result in big changes for many home health agencies and hospices in the coming year -- and probably big headaches. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has named new Medicare contractors for 34 states. The new Medicare Administrative Con-tractors (MACs) will take over from the current regional home health intermediaries. HHAs and hospices currently served by Palmetto GBA and National Government Ser-vices shouldn't notice many changes. That's because Palmetto is retaining its 16 states of home health work and the new contractor taking over NGS's six-state workload, National Heritage Insurance Corp., will retain NGS as its home health contractor. "It would make sense ... that NHIC would contract with NGS," says consultant M. Aaron Lit-tle with BKD in Springfield, Mo. "I'm not certain that NHIC had an existing infrastructure [...]