Home Health & Hospice Week

HHA profit margin in 15% range for fifth year in a row.

Despite the fact that key indicators continue to decline for home health agencies, Medicare Payment Advisory Com-mission members indicated they will recommend a 5 percent payment reduction to Congress (see story, p. 354).

Here’s the 2019 data upon which the commissioners are basing their decision.

• In 2019, Medicare spent $17.8 billion on Medicare fee-for-service, down from $17.9 billion in 2018.
• The number of HHAs fell once again, down 1.7 percent from 11,556 agencies in 2018 to 11,356 in 2019.
• HHAs furnished 6.1 million episodes to 3.3 million Medicare FFS beneficiaries. That’s down from 6.3 million episodes in 2018.
• The profit margin in 2019 was 15.8 percent. That compares to 15.3 percent in 2018, 15.2 percent in 2017, 15.5 percent in 2016, 15.6 percent in 2015, 10.8 percent in 2014, 12.7 percent in 2013, 14.4 percent in 2021, and 14.8 percent in 2011.
• The “all-payer” profit margin for HHAs is 5.9 percent, MedPAC calculates.
• Home health volume has been steadily decreasing since 2011, MedPAC staffer Evan Christman acknowledged in his presentation at the Dec. 4 meeting. But that decline “has been concentrated in states that experienced higher-than-average growth in [the] prior period,” he maintained.
• Home health accounts for about 4.4 percent of all Medicare FFS spending.