Home Health & Hospice Week

Obama begins announcing appointments affecting Medicare. Come January, Medicare will have a whole new set of leaders influencing how the federal program pays you. President Elect Barack Obama has an-nounced former Senate leader Tom Daschle as his Secretary of Health and Human Services, the department which houses the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Daschle is expected to spearhead Obama's health care reform initiative. The Visiting Nurse Associations of Amer-ica applauds the appointment. Daschle's "willingness to consider innovative strategies makes him more likely than most to recognize the role home health care can play in reducing costs and improving quality," VNAA's Andy Carter says in a release. Obama and Daschle haven't yet announced a candidate for CMS Administrator, although Em-ory University professor Kenneth Thorpe, unsuccessful House candidate Judith Feder from Vir-ginia, and physician Dora Hughes have been ru-mored as possibilities. Obama also has nominated Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag as the new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Providers will see some different political leadership in addition to Obama. House Democrats have named Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) as Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee. The committee is one of two in the House with jurisdiction over Medicare. One issue the Obama administration plans to tackle is rising health care costs. Observers expect widespread cuts to Medicare Advantage plans as part of the initiative. More ammunition: Two studies published in the journal Health Affairs from Mathematica Policy Research and the Medicare Payment Ad-visory Commission say that MA plans are increasing costs for Medicare but not improving care. About one-quarter of Medicare beneficiaries are now enrolled in MA plans, the New York Times reports. • CMS has named the new regional home health intermediary for six New England states. National Heritage Insurance Corp. will take over the regional home health intermediary work for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hamp-shire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, CMS says in a release. NHIC will also assume the Part A/Part B Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) duties in the region. NHIC will take over the business from the current National Government Services RHHI, CMS explains. However, NHIC will subcontract with NGS for RHHI work. Affected providers should be able to breathe easy thanks to the contracting arrangement. "NHIC subcontracting the [home health and hospice] functions will make it appear for these states like nothing changed," consultant Tom Boyd with Rohnert Park, Calif.-based Boyd & Nicholas tells Eli. The region has 313 home health agencies and 147 hospices, CMS says. It also has 2.3 million RHHI beneficiaries and represents 6.4 percent of the national RHHI workload. The transition will be complete by May 2009, CMS says. This timeline will be tight for contractors taking [...]