Home Health & Hospice Week

Home care providers hope for more benefits than drawbacks.

While the health care policy future under the Trump Administration is far from clear, statements made on the campaign trail and recent developments suggest these items may lie ahead, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice suggests:

• Con: Home health copays. Combining Medicare Parts A and B seems to appeal to the Trump Administration, which could very likely lead to copays for home health.
• Con: Hospice in Medicare Advantage. Republican lawmakers have been circling the idea of eliminating the hospice carve-out under MA.
• Con: More Medicare Advantage. While campaigning, President-Elect Trump said he would not touch Medicare. But recent signals indicate privatization for both Medicare and Medicaid may be on deck. While some MA payors are good partners, others set too-low rates and restrict home care coverage. Plus, navigating numerous billing and eligibility systems is burdensome.
• Pro: Axing the employer mandate. Trump campaigned heavily on eliminating the Affordable Care Act, and Price has been a vocal critic of the law. While the Administration is likely to keep popular parts of the law such as coverage for pre-existing conditions, onerous sections such as the employer mandate to provide health insurance are likely to get cut.
• Pro: Eliminating IPAB. The Independent Payment Advisory Board, sometimes called “Super-MedPAC,” is still waiting for implementation. Don’t be surprised to see the body that would have rate-cutting power abolished.
• Pro: Lightening regulatory burden. Providers hope the Trump Administration will tame the Medicare paper dragon by eliminating Pre-Claim Review (see story, p. 332), face-to-face physician certifications, and rushed implementation of demonstration concepts, among other things.