Home Health & Hospice Week

High-profile senator calls PE involvement in health care space 'parasitic.

Home health and hospice agencies have a couple of new pieces of legislation to keep an eye on.

Bill No. 1: Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has released “a discussion draft” of the Hospice Care Accountability, Reform, and Enforcement (Hospice CARE) Act, which “would make significant changes to the Medicare hospice program,” the National Association for Home Care & Hospice notes in a release. The draft legislation “contains primarily a mix of program integrity and payment changes, with a few other provisions related to medical review contractors, nurse practitioners’ role in hospice, telehealth, hospital discharge planning, and hospice ownership transparency,” according to the trade group.

For example, sweeping reforms the bill calls for are a new payment methodology for high-cost complex palliative care treatments like chemotherapy or blood transfusions; creation of an in-home respite care payment mechanism; and establishment of a nationwide Medicare hospice enrollment moratorium for five years.

“We want to make sure the proposed policies don’t unduly burden hospices following the rules and delivering quality care, and jeopardize timely access to care for the sickest among us,” NAHC says.

Bill No. 2: Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have introduced the Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act of 2024 “to root out corporate greed and private equity abuse in the health care system,” they say in a release.

PE firms’ “aggressive deal-making in the health care sector poses grave risks to patient health and raises questions about potential abuse of taxpayer dollars, as private equity companies routinely load up portfolio companies with usurious debt, sell off valuable assets, and extract exorbitant dividends and fees,” the release charges. “Lax corporate accountability and transparency laws have provided cover for private equity’s parasitic practices, allowing executives to plunder hospitals, nursing homes, provider practices, and other health care entities with impunity,” it slams.

“Private equity firms and their enablers will continue to steal from America’s health care system to feed their corporate greed unless we stop them. We need guardrails now to guarantee CEO wealth doesn’t come before the public’s health,” Sen. Markey says in the release.

The legislation would establish punishments including prison terms, salary clawbacks, and civil penalties.

Resource: The 33-page PE bill is at www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act 6.11.24.pdf.