Home Health & Hospice Week

Don't be lulled by the deceptive update, trade group warns. Cuts for case mix creep may do more damage to you next year than a new proposed rule shows. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services proposes raising home health agency rates under Medicare 2 percent in 2010, according to a proposed rule published in the Aug. 6 Federal Register. That would take the current episode base rate of $2,271.92 to $2,317.47 effective Jan. 1. However, CMS didn't use a simple inflation calculation to arrive at that rate of increase. Rather, the agency took a 2.5 percent increase resulting from a proposed outlier policy change (see related story, p. 219), subtracted a 2.75 percent case mix creep cut, and then added a 2.2 percent inflation update. Without the outlier policy change, HHAs' rates would see a more-than-half-percent cut. Worse coming: In the final rule, the case mix creep cut figure [...]