Home Health & Hospice Week

Two-month delay to 27% physician cut hammered out. After political theatrics from both sides of the aisle, members of Congress passed legislation averting the steep cut to Medicare physician payments until March 1. The agreement signed into law Dec. 23 was a Christmas present to home health agencies, who had worried that their payment rates may be at risk when legislators went looking for funding for the so-called "doc fix" that held off the 27 percent cut to physician pay rates. A beneficiary copayment for home health episodes seemed a popular money-raising provision in particular. Now when members of the House return on Jan. 17 and Senators reconvene on Jan. 23, they will return to hammering out a longer-term doc fix by the Feb. 29 deadline. House Republicans have pledged to pass a two-year fix, which will require even more funding likely to come from other providers' budgets.