Home Health & Hospice Week

Lawmakers start ironing out differences in House, Senate Medicare bills.

Despite a long road ahead on debate of the Medicare prescription drug bill, lawmakers could wrap up their deliberations on the bill's home care provisions quicker than providers would like. President Bush has called off his July deadline for the Medicare bill to reach his desk, and observers expect debate on it to reach into the fall. But legislators have signaled a desire to iron out the provider payment and regulatory reform differences in the House and Senate bills before Congress' August recess. The House appointed its representatives to the conference committee that is in charge of producing a unified bill for the House and Senate, and the committee first met July 15. Home health agencies want to stave off, among other things, a copayment and reductions to inflation updates. Durable medical equipment suppliers oppose competitive bidding and other unfavorable provisions. Your patient outcome data may mean more than just OBQI reports to brag about. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has announced a pilot project that would financially reward hospitals for high patient quality data and punish them for low data, and the same paradigm could be used for HHAs. Under the three-year pilot, hospitals that perform in the top 10 percent would collect a 2 percent bonus on their Medicare payments; those in the second 10 percent would get a 1 percent bonus. But during the third and final year, participating hospitals that fail to meet a certain benchmark could face a 1 to 2 percent cut in their Medicare payments. Another home care financier could be going down the tubes. All three bond rating services - Standard & Poor's, Fitch Ratings and Moody's Investors Service - have downgraded their ratings of DVI Inc.'s bonds after Deloitte & Touche stepped down as the company's auditor over DVI's financial practices. Jamison, PA-based DVI, an asset-based lender to the health care industry, failed to file an audited report with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the quarter ended March 31. The company has hired UBS Securities Inc. to help it raise additional capital or even sell the company, DVI says. The situation echoes the meltdown of another asset-based lender, National Century Financial Enterprises, which put a number of home care providers into bankruptcy. If you're still grappling with HIPAA compliance, you can take advantage of a free HIPAA conference call offered by CMS July 31 from 2 to 3 p.m. ET. Dial in 15 minutes ahead of time to 1-877-381-6315 with conference identification number 1596405. Medicaid fraud control units nationwide netted a total of $288 million in restitution, fines, penalties and settlements in fiscal year 2002 - up from $252.5 [...]