Home Health & Hospice Week

Current legislation would reduce payment update for HHAs, hospices.

Will this be the year that lawmakers actually pass a permanent “doc fix” bill eliminating the sustainable growth rate cuts for Medicare physician payments? If so, the cost will be borne partially on the backs of home care providers.

At press time, a one-page summary of the legislation from the House Ways and Means Com-mittee indicates that part of the $200 billion price tag would come from implementing a 1 percent pay increase for home health agencies, hospices, and other post acute providers.

That equals about a 1 percent reduction from the increase HHAs would otherwise receive, notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its analysis of the evolving legislation.

“The 1-point basket update translates into $3.4 billion in cuts over a 10-year period of time,” NAHC’s William Dombi says in a release. “And they’re permanent. They keep growing and growing. And on the hospice side, well over $2 billion of impact on payments.”

Pro: At press time, the bill did contain an extension of the rural add-on and didn’t contain a home health copay or more drastic cuts.

Con: The plan called for imposition of HHA surety bonds and didn’t include relief on the home health face-to-face encounter documentation requirements, NAHC said.

At press time, the bill’s provisions were very fluid and passage was far from assured. Law-makers were wrangling over bill language on topics ranging from abortion to lack of committed funding.

Watch for: If the House passes the bill, don’t be surprised to see a very short-term doc fix “patch” approved while the Senate takes time to consider the legislation.