Home Health & Hospice Week

One chain saw 10-therapy-visit episodes drop from 20 to 7 percent in one year. Law- and policymakers likely soon will decide how to reconfigure the home health prospective payment system in light of alleged abuses of therapy utilization. Take a look at the statistics they will use to inform the decision. The Senate Finance Committee uncovered these figures when investigating publicly traded home health companies' alleged improprieties regarding therapy utilization: At Baton Rouge, La.-based Amedisys Inc., the percent of the company's therapy episodes with 10 visits went from 9.1 percent in 2007 to 4.9 percent in 2008, the report says. "Also from 2007 to 2008, the number of therapy episodes receiving 6 visits increased from 4.6 percent to 5.3 percent, and the number of therapy episodes receiving 14 visits increased from 4.7 percent to 5.8 percent." Amedisys' home health episodes with therapy reimbursement accounted for 71 percent of Medicare revenue [...]