Home Health & Hospice Week

Tens of billions in home care cuts are working their way through Congress. Home care providers need to brace for reimbursement woes if Congress finally passes its health care reform package. After House and Senate passage of their respective reform bills, Congress' ability to send one approved reform bill to President Obama is looking more likely. Watch out: To get the legislation to the president's desk by his State of the Union address next month, Democratic lawmakers are discussing unconventional ways of securing passage of the bill. Those routes will most likely bypass the usual conference committee that would work out differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. Why it matters: While both bills contain tens of billions of dollars in cuts to home health agency and hospice Medicare rates, the Senate bill is friendlier to the industry, observers say. It includes no reimbursement changes for 2010 [...]