Home Health & Hospice Week
HHA PROFIT MARGIN ON MEDICARE ONLY 3%, ASSOCIATION SAYS
Medicare payment cuts to blame for decrease. The latest cost report data shows just how far off base the feds are in estimating home health agencies' Medicare profit margins in double digits. The National Association forHome Care & Hospice has analyzed more than 5,600 cost reports for fiscal years ending in 2003, it says. The profit margin it found on Medicare revenues: 3.36 percent. That's down from 5.17 percent in a previous analysis, NAHC notes. The reduction is largely due to Medicare payment rate cuts that took effect Oct. 1, 2002. That low figure differs significantly from the General Accounting Office's profit margin of 17.2 percent in 2002 for HHAs and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's prediction of a 16.8 percent profit margin in 2004 for agencies. One of the main differences is NAHC's inclusion of hospital-based HHAs in its analysis.
During the first week of May, CMS received 1.6 million calls to the hotline -- 10 times the regular call volume. The increase is largely due to interest in the prescription drug discount cards, CMS says. But seven more HHAs employing 10,000 aides didn't settle, and more strikes against them may be coming, according to leaders of 1199/S.E.I.U., New York's largest health care union. Under the deal expected to close this month, Praxair will pay $245 million for the 13-state company with revenues of $169 million. The acquisition will expand Praxair's service area to 27 states. "It also increases the density of our Northeast operations and significantly expands our presence from the mid-Atlantic to Texas," George Ristevski, Praxair health-care services president, says in a release. Hospice board members convinced Mid-Florida to go with the non-profit offer, reports The (Lakeland) Ledger. The transfer is planned for August. Connecticut Medicaid rate reductions for certain nursing visits are to blame for the decrease, NHHC says. But the state has retroactively increased some rates. DrewCousins was sent home from knee surgery with a morphine pump, the paper says. When Cousins experienced severe pain, nausea and vomiting, the pump was replaced with Dilaudid HP and Valium, the suit says. The combination of drugs apparently suppressed his respiratory system and he died a day after surgery. Cousins should have been readmitted to the hospital after he developed pain control problems, and his family should have been instructed about potential medicine complications and side effects, according to the lawsuit. The suit also implicates the physician, who allegedly refused to readmit Cousins, the physician's practice and a nurse the practice employs, the paper says.
Home Health & Hospice Week
- Compliance:
MAKE DOCUMENTATION YOUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY
Are you covering these two crucial homebound areas in your records? Homebound status might be [...] - Regulations:
EXPECT WHEELCHAIR COVERAGE GUIDELINES BY YEAR'S END
New HCPCS codes slated for fall. Now that the government workgroup on wheelchair clinical coverage [...] - Fraud & Abuse:
WHEELCHAIR FRAUD COSTS TEXAS SUPPLIERS THEIR OWN WHEELS
Brothers could face 10 years in prison. Two more Texas wheelchair suppliers are facing the [...] - Coverage:
WILL FUNCTIONAL AMBULATION BE KEY TO WHEELCHAIR COVERAGE?
New CMN likely in the works. Medicare officials may have gotten more than they bargained [...] - Marketing:
SEIZE DRG PROPOSAL AS HOSPITAL MARKETING OPPORTUNITY
Make transfer lemons into lemonade. If you let the newest changes to the DRG transfer [...] - Hospitals:
PROPOSED DRGS SUBJECT TO POST-ACUTE TRANSFER POLICY
The DRG for psychoses will be the newest addition to the post-acute transfer payment policy [...] - Industry Notes:
HHA PROFIT MARGIN ON MEDICARE ONLY 3%, ASSOCIATION SAYS
Medicare payment cuts to blame for decrease. The latest cost report data shows just how [...]
