Home Health & Hospice Week

Reach out to your representatives today, trade groups urge. Home care providers are hopeful that Pres-ident-elect Barack Obama will make Medicare a kinder place for home care, and they're ready to work on it. In a last-minute campaign stop in his campaign office in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 3, Obama addressed the issue of home care when making calls to uncommitted voters. "This is happening in my own family, and in addition to Social Security and Medicare one of the things that I think is really important is [utilizing] home care a lot more," Obama told a caller who broached the topic, according to Time magazine. "My grandmother was able to stay [at] home all the way until recently." Obama's grandmother died on Nov. 2 after a long illness. "The good news for the home care and hospice community is that he has pledged his support for greater access to home care services," notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its newsletter for members. "I hope that a new administration ... will have a broader vision of the issues in Medicare," Bob Wardwell with the Visiting Nurse Associa-tions of America tells Eli. In the big picture, home care should be "recognized as a key part of the solution to the graying of America, rather than a budget item that is somehow a problem that gets solved through across-the-board cuts," says Wardwell, a former CMS official. "I know VNAA is ready to make the case for non-profit home care as soon as the new administration is seeing visitors," Wardwell adds. NAHC "pledges to work with [the president] on health care reform and other initiatives to encourage greater use of home- and community-based care," it says. The new administration appoints the leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Ser-vices, points out the National Association of Inde-pendent Medical Suppliers in a message to members. "We have new opportunities to advance the agenda of DME," the trade group observes. And don't forget your local representatives. "We must begin building relationships with the new Congress," NAIMES urges. "We must help the new and expanded Democratic majority understand who we are, what we do, and how good we are." "NAHC will aggressively make the case in the remaining days of the 110th and next year in the newly elected 111th Congress for reinstatement of the home health rural add on," the trade group adds. • CMS has finally issued its rule on post-oxygen cap payment and suppliers aren't happy. The guidance is "alarming and wholly inadequate," blasts the American Association for Homecare. The policy is "a disaster," declares NAIMES. Troublesome provisions include inadequate payment [...]