Home Health & Hospice Week

Reprieve from 2% cut ends March 31.

It’s no joke that Medicare providers will have to operate with less reimbursement come April 1.

Why? A 2 percent Medicare sequestration pay cut and a 4 percent Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) sequestration cut were set to hit Medicare providers Jan. 1, but Congress passed and President Biden signed the Protecting Medicare and American Farmers from Sequester Cuts Act last December (see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXX, No. 44).

Unfortunately, the law only delayed the cuts — and not by a lot. The 2 percent cut got bumped to a 1 percent cut starting April 1 and back to a 2 percent cut starting June 1. The 4 percent PAYGO cut was delayed until January 2023, at least.

Now providers are staring down that April 1 start date for the 1 percent cut, and no help is yet forthcoming from Congress. “The passage of S.610, while greatly appreciated, came before the omicron wave,” stress the National Association for Home Care & Hospice, the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization, LeadingAge, and the National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation in a recent letter to congressional leaders. “The ongoing [Public Health Emergency] continues to impose financial pressures that impact access to care,” they emphasize. That includes “unprecedented labor expenses” and “high costs for personal protective equipment and other supplies,” among other factors.

“While our members continue to innovate to serve patients and families, these challenges will be exacerbated if impending planned sequestration cuts are allowed to take effect in the coming months,” the groups say in their letter.

NAHC has also signed onto another letter to congressional leaders urging them to extend the sequestration moratorium, it reports. The letter’s 36 cosigners include the American Medical Association, the Medical Group Management Association, and the American Nurses Association.

“It is vitally important to extend the current 2 percent Medicare sequester moratorium for the duration of the COVID-19 PHE, and to take action before April 1 when sequestration is scheduled to resume,” NAHC stresses.