After Nursing Home Push, Home Health Reform Could Be Up Next

Home Health Care News

With a recently released set of proposed reforms, the Biden administration is placing U.S. nursing homes under greater scrutiny.

And though the reforms are focused entirely on nursing homes, providers in other sectors – including home health – are wondering if there will be reverberations throughout post-acute care.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden expressed his intent to improve nursing home conditions during his first State of the Union address. In particular, he called out private equity (PE)-owned facilities.

“As Wall Street firms take over more nursing homes, quality in those homes has gone down and costs have gone up. That ends on my watch,” Biden said during his speech.

Earlier in the week, the Biden administration released a comprehensive set of proposed reforms. The aim of the reforms is to “protect vulnerable residents,” as well as health care workers.

The White House briefing also mentions cracking down on “bad actors” in the nursing home industry.

Among other things, reforms include establishing minimum staffing requirements and examining the growing role of PE in the nursing home sector. These actions were developed by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the White House stated.

“CMS is ready to implement this vision and at the foundation is the establishment of minimum standards for staffing in nursing homes,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, CMS Administrator, said in a press statement. “This new evidence-based requirement will permanently strengthen quality of care by ensuring facilities have enough well-trained staff on duty to provide the services needed by the residents who rely on them.”

This substantial increase in federal nursing home regulation has led some providers to believe that home health could be on the Biden administration’s radar next.

“It’s just a matter of time before it hits home health,” Peter Miska, regional director of program development at Elite Care Management, told Home Health Care News. “It’s not a question of if — it’s a question of when. [Home health providers] should start preparing for it now, so they’re ahead of the curve.”

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Medicaid Payment Issues Plague Host of Colorado Caregivers and Therapists

The Colorado Sun | Feb. 28, 2022

The state Medicaid division is facing complaints about contractors who handle billing on multiple fronts, from mental health to in-home caregivers for people with disabilities. 

Payment issues in Colorado’s Medicaid system extend beyond mental health therapists who’ve been raising alarm for months that they aren’t receiving timely reimbursement for seeing patients who are low-income or have disabilities. 

As the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing tries to tamp down a string of payment debacles with mental health professionals, some home health caregivers, speech therapists and others say they also have struggled to get authorization, including for services for children with severe disabilities who live at home.

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Download the Latest Home Health Payment Rates

BKD CPAs & Advisors – 2022

Home health payment rates are critical to your business operations. That’s why we’ve made them available for your agency’s service area. Click below to download your 2022 payment rates today.

CHAP Updated Top 10 Home Health Deficiencies Resource

This update includes the most cited Home Health deficiencies for both the CHAP Standard and the CoP G Tags. Some of the top ten deficiencies included are in Patient Rights, Individualized Plan of Care, Infection Control, Written information to the patient, and more!

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