Home Health & Hospice Week

Many home care providers will be happy if a bill recently passed out of committee succeeds in becoming a law. On June 2, the House Ways and Means Committee voted to pass the Protecting Seniors’ Access to Medicare Act of 2015 (H.R. 1190), which would eliminate the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) panel. The Affordable Care Act created IPAB as a way to pinpoint strategies to save money within the Medicare program, but critics say IPAB members — chosen by presidential appointment — shouldn’t be making decisions about what type of care Medicare beneficiaries should be receiving. Instead, medical professionals argue, patients and their healthcare teams should be making those determinations.

Watch for Congress to formally vote on whether to repeal IPAB in the near future. Mean-while, health care provider groups are cheering the fact that IPAB could be but a memory soon.

“IPAB is a flawed policy and the AMA has been advocating for the repeal of it since the ACA was passed,” said Robert M. Wah of the American Medical Association in a statement. “It would put significant health care payment and policy decisions in the hands of an independent body of individuals with far too little accountability…Getting rid of IPAB will allow physicians and policymakers to focus on long term efforts to improve care quality, improve health outcomes and make Medicare more sustainable while preserving access to care for seniors now and in the future.”