Home Health & Hospice Week

Extenders Act addresses Money Follows the Person.

Home health agencies may still be waiting on legislative help for Patient-Driven Groupings Model concerns, but they have secured a victory in a newly enacted law: the Medicaid Extenders Act of 2019.

The bill signed by President Trump Jan. 24 extends the “Money Follows the Person” demonstration project for Medicaid. “The MFP Rebalancing Demonstration Grants, which became effective in 2005, have helped over 75,151 Medicaid beneficiaries with chronic conditions and disabilities to transition from nursing homes to community-based settings,” says aging services trade group LeadingAge in a bill summary. “While eight state MFP programs already have exhausted their funding, the remaining 36 were expected to exhaust their funding by December 31, 2018. Medicaid Extenders Act includes three months of funding for MFP that states have until September 30, 2019 to spend.”

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice calls the enactment a “key win” for the industry.

The bill also includes a three-month extension to current protections against spousal impoverishment when a Medicaid recipient requires home care. The provision “is modeled after similar protections already available under Medicaid law for spouses of Medicaid beneficiaries living in nursing homes,” LeadingAge points out.

“H.R. 259 will allow married couples to protect certain assets while using Medicaid coverage for HCBS,” NAHC notes.

Earlier efforts to pass a longer extension bill weren’t successful, LeadingAge notes.