Pediatric Home Health Fact Sheet Contributors Needed

APTA Home Health is working in collaboration with APTA Pediatrics to create best practice resource 'Fact Sheets' for our members. We are looking for 2 to 4 more members with pediatric experience to be part of the committee, particularly if they have writing skills and/or ideas that they would like to contribute. 

Interested APTA Home Health members can direct questions or submit their name for consideration to Matt Hansen, Deputy Director with the Academy at [email protected] 

Lawmakers Back Home Health Providers, Condemn Payment Cuts In Symbolic Subcommittee Hearing

Home Health Care News | By Andrew Donlan
 
The Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Health Care held a hearing Thursday regarding aging in place and access to home health care in the U.S.

While current struggles were highlighted throughout, the hearing was ultimately a symbolic win for home health providers across the country.

Lawmakers came across as more educated on home health care – and the issues the sector faces – than ever. They also, generally, seemed to be unsure why more investment wasn’t being put toward home-based care.

“Because of the lack of a coordinated policy, seniors often end up in a more costly environment, in a less desirable environment, and – I would suggest – a more dangerous environment for their long-term health,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MA), the chair of the subcommittee, said.

Cardin also began the hearing by mentioning there’s a “great deal of interest” from both Democrats and Republicans on the topic of home health care.

The hearing was “very well attended,” according to Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare CEO Joanne Cunningham. 

The chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, was also there, for instance.

Witnesses for the hearing included: William A. Dombi, the president of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice; Carrie Edwards, the director of home care services at Mary Lanning Healthcare; Judith Stein, the executive director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy; and David Grabowski, a professor and researcher at Harvard Medical School.

“I think the big message was very clearly that the Senate Finance Committee, on a bipartisan basis, cares a lot about the Medicare home health program, and is concerned about reimbursement cuts and the impact that workforce shortages are having on access to care,” Cunningham told Home Health Care News.

The overarching theme was, of course, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) home health payment cuts.

Witnesses were able to openly discuss the impact that cuts have had up to this point, and the impact further cuts would have in the future.

They were also able to discuss the dangers of skyrocketing referral rejection rates, the impact of further Medicare Advantage (MA) penetration and the issues the provider community takes with Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC) reports on home health care.

“It is overall financial margins that really measure financial stability, not the incomplete analysis presented by MedPAC,” Dombi said during the hearing. “Medicare margins – to the extent they exist – are subsidizing other payers like Medicaid and Medicare Advantage.”

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Home Health Pays Highest for PT, OT, Compensation Report Finds

McKnight’s Home Care | By Am Healy
 
Working for home health agencies is more lucrative for physical therapists and occupational therapists than other long-term care employers, according to data from the Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service (HCS) Rehabilitation Salary & Benefits Report for 2023.
 
From July 2022 to June 2023, home health agencies paid the highest rates for PT services, at $48.67 per hour, on average. Hospital and long-term care (LTC) settings paid $46.68 and $45.89 per hour, respectively. However, pay rate increases were the slowest in home health settings, increasing by only 3.2% while rates grew at 3.5% in hospitals and 3.7% in LTC.
 
For occupational therapists, home health agencies paid $45.94 per hour, while hospitals paid $44.08 and LTC paid $42.75 per hour, on average. 
 
Rates varied by state. Home-based physical therapy received the highest hourly rates in New York, at $58.50 per hour, whereas Minnesota saw the lowest rates at $42 per hour.
 
Home health agencies also offered other benefits to physical therapists and occupational therapists. More than 93% of those surveyed offered paid time off, and on average, PT and OT workers earned about two weeks of PTO upon receiving employment. The vast majority offered time-and-a-half or double-time pay for holidays worked.
 
More than 90% of these agencies also offered continuing education and tuition assistance opportunities to PT and OT workers, even for those paid hourly. Almost 100% offered retirement plans, and 85% matched employees’ contributions. All of the home health agencies surveyed offered health insurance to employees, and most extended coverage to dependents. Vision and dental insurance were also offered by all of those surveyed.
 
To gather this data, HCS analyzed a total of 2,600 care providers, including LTC facilities, hospitals and home health agencies. Two years ago, pay growth for PT services in home health settings lagged behind hospitals and LTC. The same HCS report from 2021 found that home health agencies may use higher wages as a tool to offset challenges brought about by staffing shortages felt across the entire healthcare industry.

Free Covid Tests Will Be Offered Again to All U.S. Households

StatNews | By Helen Branswell and Rachel Cohrs

The federal government is again offering free Covid-19 tests to Americans, providing a fifth round of free tests in part to meet current needs, in part to stimulate a domestic testing industry that has struggled with cratering demand for the rapid diagnostics.

The measure, announced Wednesday, will see rapid tests released from the Strategic National Stockpile. In addition, 12 domestic test manufacturers will receive investments totaling $600 million to help “warm-base” the U.S. capacity for rapid test production, both for Covid and future disease threats.

“We will make available some of those tests that we have in our stockpile,” Xavier Becerra, health and human services secretary, said in Washington, “so that Americans can … use those tests during this viral season.”

Earlier in the pandemic, demand for rapid tests was huge. But it has been up and down, based on levels of transmission — and on the intensity of public concern. For instance, some manufacturers scaled back production in 2021, as the national vaccination effort gained ground.

When the massive Omicron wave hit in late 2021 and early 2022, it took weeks to get significant supplies of tests available again, Dawn O’Connell, HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response, told STAT in an interview. Since the end of the public health emergency in May, some health insurers have declined to pay for rapid tests, further depressing sales.

The country needs to have ongoing production capacity, based in the U.S., O’Connell said.

“What it does is keep the lines running, so we no longer have that boom and bust [cycle],” she said. “This capability is important now for Covid and we’re using it and exercising it now as we’re heading into the fall and winter season. But it’s going to be critically important for other outbreaks that we’re responding to in the future.”

Households will be entitled to receive four free rapid tests apiece, with ordering at COVIDtests.gov opening on Sept. 25. O’Connell said test shipments are expected to start on Oct. 2.

The money flowing to the 12 domestic producers will require them to keep their production bases warm. O’Connell said that after the winter, when public demand for tests may again shrink, the federal government will receive, as part of the deal, 200 million new Covid tests to replenish the national stockpile.

She encouraged people to order the tests and use them, especially when planning to spend time around people for whom Covid remains a significant health threat.

“We’ve seen each fall and winter season an increase in cases as people move indoors and are seeing their families again and interacting in smaller groups and closer quarters. We wanted to make sure as we head into that season … that we provide an avenue for people to be able to receive these tests for free,” O’Connell said.

“It’s just one of the arrows in our quiver for the fall and winter season and we’re pleased to provide these tools to protect Americans from Covid and keep their family members safe.”