Legislation:
Brace For Big Home Care Cuts In Reform Package
Published on Tue Oct 13, 2009
Home care providers keep a close eye on Senate. The universal health care legislation winding its way through Congress may be good news for uninsured Americans, but it's not looking good for home care providers. The House of Representatives on Nov. 7 narrowly passed a health care reform bill (H.R. 3962) that would cut about $55 billion from Medicare home health agency payments over the next 10 years, notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. Another $8 billion is targeted from hospice payments. "We cannot tolerate a level of cuts that results in our inability to serve the Medicare patients who are so sick with multiple chronic diseases that they cannot leave home without assistance and require physician-ordered, skilled nursing or physical therapy services," NAHC insists. "The Visiting Nurse Associations of America is extremely disappointed with the level of across-the-board cuts included in the House health reform bill," [...]