Home Health & Hospice Week

You'd better get familiar with a new entity at CMS, because it could completely change the way you get reimbursed by Medicare. CMS has established the Center for Medicare and Medicaid nnovation (Innovation Center), it says in a release. The Center was created by the Affordable Care Act and "will examine new ways of delivering health care and paying health care providers that can save money for Medicare and Medicaid while improving the quality of care." "For too long, health care in the United States has been fragmented -- failing to meet patients' basic needs, and leaving both patients and providers frustrated," CMS Administrator Donald Berwick says in the release. "Payment systems often fail to reward providers for coordinating care and keeping their patients healthy reinforcing this fragmentation. The Innovation Center will help change this trend by identifying, supporting, and evaluating models of care that both improve the quality of care patients receive and lower costs."

The Center could be a boon for home care providers, who furnish services in a low-cost setting and help keep patients out of the hospital and nursing homes, industry veterans speculate. But it could also push ideas unpopular with the home care industry, such as bundling home care payments into hospital or physician reimbursement. The Center is starting its work in the primary care area, launching demonstration projects related to the medical home model.