Home Health & Hospice Week

Drop in agencies occurred in fraud-prone areas, MedPAC says.

Law- and policymakers are basing their decisions on facts and figures the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission provides in its annual report to Congress.

MedPAC's report contains these statistics about 2016:

• The number of home health agencies fell slightly by 1.2 percent to 12,204. "The decline in 2016 was concentrated in areas that experienced sharp increases in supply in prior years," the report maintains.
• The volume of 60-day episodes decreased by 0.7 percent.
• The average number of episodes per home health user declined by 0.9 percent to 1.9 million.
• The average number of users increased 0.1 percent to 3.5 million.
• The percentage of fee-for-service beneficiaries who used home health fell from 9.1 percent in 2015 to 9.0 percent in 2016. That compares to 10.5 percent in 1997.
• Medicare home health spending increased about 0.1 percent to $18.1 billion.
• Between 2002 and 2016, spending increased by more than 80 percent.
• About 99 percent of Medicare beneficiaries live in a zip code served by one HHA, and 86 percent live in a zip code served by five or more agencies.

Source: MedPAC's annual report to Congress at www.medpac.gov/docs/default-source/reports/mar18_medpac_entirereport_sec.pdf.