Home Health & Hospice Week

Number of users, spending also are down, latest data shows.

Law- and policymakers will base any legislative and policy decisions on facts and figures the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission provides in its annual report to Congress.

MedPAC’s report issued March 15 contains these statistics about 2017:

• The home health agency profit margin fell to 15.2 percent, down from 15.5 percent in 2016.
• The number of HHAs fell to 11,844, down from 12,204 in 2016 — a 3 percent drop. And that’s down from the even higher 12,346 in 2015. The declines were concentrated in the fraud-and-abuse-prone states of Florida and Texas, MedPAC says.
• The number of home health users fell to 3.4 million, down from 3.5 million in 2016.
• The number of home health episodes fell to 6.3 million, down from 6.5 million in 2016 and 6.8 million in 2011.
• The share of Medicare beneficiaries using home care fell to 8.8 percent, down from 8.9 percent the previous year and 9.4 percent in 2011.
• Home health spending fell to $17.7 billion, down from $18.0 billion the previous year. But MedPAC points out that spending is up 88 percent compared to 2002.
• Number of episodes per user held steady at 1.9, while the number of episodes per fee-for-service beneficiary fell to 0.16, down from 0.17 in 2016.
• Skilled nursing visits fell to 8.4 per episode compared to 8.6 the previous year, while therapy visits increased from 7.3 per episode to 7.7. Aide visits fell from 1.8 to 1.6 per episode.
• The number of visits per user held steady at 31. But MedPAC reaches way back to compare the figure to 73 in 1997.
• Forprofit agencies saw a profit margin of 16.4 percent, down a bit from 16.8 percent in 2016. Nonprofit HHAs had an average profit margin of 10.9 percent, down from 12.0 percent in the previous year.
• MedPAC estimates HHAs will have an average profit margin of 16.0 percent in 2019.