Home Health & Hospice Week

Half of the participating regions failed to generate program savings. All the hard work participating agencies put into the pay for performance demonstration project isn't necessarily netting them any financial benefit. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has calculated the Medicare program savings for the second year of the home health agency pay for performance demonstration project, and only two of the four demo regions saw savings, according to the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. That means agencies from the two regions whose intervention group did not save Medicare money overall will not receive bonuses. In 2009, the South and West regions achieved $14.95 million in savings, NAHC reports. The Northeast and Midwest regions did not see savings. For the demo, CMS calculated savings by comparing total Medicare spending for the intervention group's patients versus a control group. In comparison: In the first year of the demo [...]