Senators fight Home Health, Hospice cuts

[cougarnurse]

Thought this would be an interesting article from Advance for Nurses:

Senators Susan M. Collins (R-ME) and Robert P. Casey (D-PA) introduced the Home Health Care Access Protection Act of 2007 (S. 2181) to prevent the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) from imposing dramatic cuts to the Medicare home health program.

A companion bill, H.R. 3865, has also been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressmen Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones, Jr. (R-NC).

The cuts, scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, lawmakers say would likely lead to reduced beneficiary access to services provided by home healthcare providers.
The Senate bill is co-sponsored by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Christopher Bond (R-MO) and would block the 11.75 percent cuts to the home health program over 4 years.

“These proposed administrative cuts would be just devastating,” said Sen. Collins. “It is particularly troubling because the Medicare home health benefit has already taken a larger hit in spending cuts over the past 10 years than any other Medicare benefit. In fact, home care, as a share of Medicare spending, has dropped from 8.7 percent in 1997, to only 3.2 percent today. And it’s projected to decline to just 2.6 percent of Medicare spending in 2015.”

“The legislation that we’re introducing today will block the administrative cuts that have been proposed by CMS as part of a new regulation that was issued in August," Collins continued. "It will also establish a reliable and transparent process for the Department of Health & Human Services to use to justify payment rates.”
“Home care has specifically been proven to be a compassionate, cost-effective means of delivering essential health services,” she continued. “If these cuts go through, the impact will not just be on the home health agencies; the impact will be most felt by the seniors and disabled citizens. They are the ones who ultimately will be hurt by cuts of this magnitude.”
Jeffrey Kincheloe, Director of Government Affairs for the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), said that “while the need for home care is increasing, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have sought to decrease rather than increase Medicare home health funding. “CMS has scheduled a $6 billion cut on Medicare home health beneficiaries who are, by definition, ill and homebound and cannot fight for themselves. Such cuts are unconscionable and out of touch with reality.”
According to NAHC, “unless Congress intervenes, fewer people will have access to care; those who do qualify will receive less care as more than 50 percent of all Medicare providers will be paid less than it costs them to provide services, many home health providers will go out of business; overall Medicare costs will increase because patients who had been receiving care at home will be forced to receive their care at five to ten times the cost in overcrowded hospital emergency rooms or nursing homes, and others will simply go without care.”
The National Association for Home Care & Hospice represents the interests of nearly 25,000 home health agencies, home care aide organizations and hospices as well as the caregivers that provide services to more than seven million Americans each year.
For more information online, visit NAHC’s Web site at www.nahc.org

'Cat'