Home Health & Hospice Week

CMS is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to keeping patients out of the nursing home, and the result is likely to benefit home care providers.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is making available “$165 million in supplemental funding to states currently operating Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration programs,” it says in a release. “This funding will help state Medicaid programs jump-start efforts to transition individuals with disabilities and older adults from institutions and nursing facilities to home and community-based settings of their choosing.”

“The tragic devastation wrought by the Coronavirus on nursing home residents exposes America’s over-reliance on institutional long-term care facilities,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma says in the release. “Our goal must always be to give residents options that help keep our loved ones in their own homes and communities for as long as possible.”

CMS seems to be joining in the tune home care providers have been singing for years. “Home and community-based care is not only frequently more cost effective, but is preferred by seniors and adults with disabilities seeking to maintain the dignity of independent living. This new federal investment will help states get our loved ones back home,” Verma adds.

Thirty-three states including the District of Columbia operate MFP-funded transition programs and will be eligible to receive up to $5 million each under the initiative, CMS says. The types of activities eligible for extra funding include “diversion strategies to prevent nursing facility admission.”

More information is at www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/long-term-services-supports/money-follows-person/index.html.