Home Health & Hospice Week

Influential legislation to cut your Medicare payments may be on deck.

The so-called congressional "super committee" has been tasked with coming up with a plan by Thanksgiving to cut $1.2 trillion in government spending. With that deadline fast approaching, loads of provider groups are lobbying super committee members to avoid cuts in their areas.

Home care providers are no exception. After the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Obama administration proposed home health agency copays, HHA groups and individuals have been urging lawmakers to shoot down those proposals. And both HHAs and hospices are urging committee members to eschew Medicare reimbursement cuts on top of their already scheduled reductions.

But agencies may have a tough battle ahead on copays. Most recently, most of the Senate Finance Committee's Republican members have endorsed implementing a copay that would apply to all Medicare Part A services including home health and hospice, notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

"While we support the Committee's efforts to reduce the deficit and contain rising health care costs, home care is part of the solution, it's not the problem," Tyler Wilson of the American Association for Homecare says in a letter to the committee. "Home care ... has proven to reduce costs across the health care system."