Home Health & Hospice Week

New legislation, letter to CMS head are latest shots fired.

Home health agencies are hoping with Congress in their corner, they can avert punishing rate reductions proposed for implementation on Jan. 1.

Reps. Terri Sewell (D-AL) and Adrian Smith (R-NE) introduced the Preserving Access to Home Health Act of 2023 in the U.S. House of Representatives on Aug. 1. The bill would repeal the behavioral adjustment cuts under the Patient- Driven Groupings Model, which have led CMS to propose a 2.2 percent payment rate cut for 2024.

The legislation, which has a companion bill in the Senate introduced in June, would also direct the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission to analyze payment data for all payers including Medicare Advantage and Medicaid. And it would add some data requirements for home health cost reports.

“The home health community calls on Congress to ensure the stability that patients and providers urgently need,” says National Association for Home Care & Hospice President William Dombi in a release. “Since Medicare has again proposed deep cuts to home health in 2024, Congress must act to protect the care their constituents prefer and want,” Dombi maintains.

“Patients leaving the hospital … are finding it increasingly difficult to find Medicare home health providers, signaling an immediate need for Congress to intervene and block Medicare from making such strident cuts to home health again this year,” Joanne Cunningham, CEO of the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, says in the release.

“Data suggest that Medicare’s continued cuts to home health are restricting patient access to the safest and lowest-cost care setting following a hospital stay.”

In fact, software vendor WellSky says home health referral rejection rates have increased 40 percent in 2023 compared to 2022, according to the release. “Acute providers struggle to secure post-acute care for their patients in a timely manner,” WellSky argues in its report at https://info.wellsky. com/rs/596-FKF-634/images/2023_Evolution_of_Care_ Report.pdf.

NAHC and the PQHH also wrote a July 28 letter to CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, warning her that finalizing the cuts “risks irreparable fracturing of the foundation of skilled home health care in America and the erosion of seniors’ ability to receive care in their home.”