Home health groups fight back against proposed cuts – By Jessie Hellmann (Roll Call) / Oct 4, 2022
Advocates worry the damage would have a lasting impact on their industry
Lobbyists and some members of Congress are urging the Biden administration to abandon proposed cuts to home health service Medicare payment rates, arguing the cuts could have a lasting impact on the industry.
A proposed rule, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services releases annually to set rates for home health services, calls for a 7.96 percent permanent cut to payments starting next year. The cuts are part of the agency’s attempt to implement a new payment system for home health care that Congress passed in 2018.
The cut is intended to bring Medicare spending on home health services in line with what it spent before the implementation of the new payment system, but industry groups argue CMS’s math is wrong — and some members of Congress agree.
“We really see this as a huge issue for home health members, but it’s also a bad policy generally in aging services in this time of this workforce crisis and this time of recovery from the pandemic,” said Mollie Gurian, vice president of policy for LeadingAge, which represents aging services providers. “We’re hopeful that CMS is able to be responsive to that and if not, that Congress is responsive to that because it could lead to closures.”
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