Home Health & Hospice Week

The steep decline in home health services when the COVID-19 pandemic began isn’t going unnoticed by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

“Home health agencies and inpatient rehabilitation facilities experienced volume declines during the first quarter of 2020 in the 20 to 30 percent range, largely due to the cancellation of elective surgeries,” said MedPAC analyst Kathryn Linehan noted in the advisory group’s Sept. 3 meeting. “Publicly traded home health agencies and IRFs reported that volume began to slowly recover in April and had reached at least 95 percent of pre-pandemic levels by late June,” Linehan told commissioners in the meeting conducted online.

In comparison, from January to May, nursing home volume fell about 10 percent, Linehan noted. “Some volume in nursing homes may not return or may be slower to return than in other sectors if beneficiaries opt to avoid this setting,” she pointed out.