Home Health & Hospice Week

3% bump based on beneficiary's residence. The recently enacted health care reform package might make cuts to home care payments in the long run, but in the short run it could raise your Medicare rates. For episodes ending on or after April 1,Medicare will add 3 percent to rural home healthagency payments, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services confirms in a message to providers. Unlike previous add-ons which were limited in time, this add-on's expiration date is relatively far off at Dec. 31, 2016. How it works: "Claims that report a rural state code (code beginning with 999) as the Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) code for the beneficiary's residence will receive the additional 3 percent payment," CMS explains in the message. "The CBSA code is reported associated with value code 61 on home health claims." Don't expect to see the additional dollars going into your wallet quite yet, [...]