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Home Care Industry Touts Bipartisan Bill to Expand Medicare In-Home Benefits, Reimbursement

Fierce Healthcare | By Dave Muoio
 
Healthcare providers and tech companies with a stake in home health have coalesced around bipartisan legislation introduced last week that would shift care away from the hospital to patients' living rooms and bedrooms.
 
The Expanding Care in the Home Act sponsored by Reps. Adrian Smith, R-Nebraska, and Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, would expand access to and reimbursement for various home care services delivered to Medicare beneficiaries. The bill proposes a baseline 12 hours per week of personal care services benefit in Medicare, which advocates say would help support a population of beneficiaries unable to afford out-of-pocket home care but not quite poor enough to qualify under Medicaid.
 
“As we identify opportunities to modernize the care seniors can access, we must consider the convenience and comfort home care offers them,” Smith said in a release. “The Expanding Care in the Home Act is a commonsense measure to ensure Medicare can process claims for in-home care services, and I’m proud to lead introduction of this important bill.”
 
Additionally, reimbursement funds and policy adjustments directed by the tentative legislation would open the door for primary care house calls; increase access to home dialysis, in-home advanced diagnostic, in-home lab testing and home infusion services; and help support the development of additional home-based care workers, according to a release.
 
“We know people often prefer to receive care in the comfort and security of their own homes, and the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of expanding access to health care beyond traditional doctor’s office or hospital settings,” Dingell said in a release. “I’m proud to introduce this legislation which will help remove barriers to care and increase options for patients to receive critical care in the setting of their choice.”
 
The proposed bill is being championed by Moving Health Home, an advocacy group comprised of DaVita Kidney Care, Ascension, Amazon, Signify Health, Current Health, Intermountain Healthcare and at least 15 other stakeholder industry groups, according to its website…

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Interim HealthCare CEO: ‘No action’ Behind Biden Executive Order

Newsmakers Podcast (AUDIO Podcast) | By Liza Berger
 
Interim HealthCare President and CEO Jennifer Sheets told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse the Biden administration’s recent executive order directing more resources into the home falls short at a time when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is cutting home health rates. In this Newsmakers podcast, Sheets talks about how she plans to advocate for the industry in her new role as board chair of the Research Institute for Home Care.

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Scope of COVID-19 Funding Cuts Emerges as Debt Limit Flashpoint

Roll Call | By Aidan Quigley
 
Veterans health care funding clawback becomes a top Democratic talking point; GOP denies plan to cut benefits
 
​Democrats are jumping on the House GOP plan to recoup unspent pandemic aid in their debt limit bill, charging that the move will harm agencies counting on that funding, including the Department of Veterans Affairs. 
 
The bill, which Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is hoping to get on the floor this week, would rescind $72 billion in unobligated pandemic relief aid.
 
A new analysis compiled by House Appropriations Committee Democrats tallied up the major sources of untapped COVID-19 cash.
 
Nearly $17 billion is sitting in Department of Health and Human Services coffers for things like research and testing of vaccines and therapeutics, payments to hospitals and nursing homes, and genomic sequencing of COVID-19 samples to identify variants. Almost $6 billion would come out of unspent Transportation Department funds for highway, aviation and transit agencies.
 
“Rescinding this funding would eliminate critical resources for mayors and governors to keep their airports open, trains running, and buses operating to get their essential workers to and from their jobs to keep our economy and people alive,” the Democrats' memo states. 
 
But few issues carry the political resonance as potential cuts to veterans benefits, and Democrats have been aiming their fire particularly at over $2 billion sitting in VA health accounts that the debt limit bill would cancel.
 
Rescinding that money would “dramatically limit the ability for VA to provide healthcare services both within and outside of VA by clawing back needed funding for medical care,” according to the Democrats' memo.
 
“I do not understand what my House Republican colleagues are doing, and I am not sure they do either,” House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said in a statement.
 
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., introduced an amendment to the debt limit bill Tuesday that would exempt VA funds from the rescission. Under her amendment, the funding would remain available through September 2024.
 
Perez is a freshman who flipped a GOP-held seat last November, winning the heavily contested race by less than 1 percentage point in a district former President Donald Trump carried by about 4 points two years earlier. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates her 2024 reelection bid a "Toss-up."
 
Republicans, however, see recouping the money as a layup opportunity to cut spending.
 
House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, said during the Rules Committee’s consideration of the debt limit bill that the pandemic spending is not needed and should be directed to other priorities.
 
“Now that the national emergency is officially over, we should be able to take back those resources,” Granger said.
 
'Serious questions'
 
Republicans are pushing back, vowing that veterans health care will be protected in the appropriations process despite the bill’s tight spending caps. They say they already had concerns about the VA’s handling of remaining pandemic funds, which were appropriated in 2020 and 2021. 
 
House Republicans “have serious questions about VA’s spending of this money in the first place,” House Veterans’ Affairs GOP spokeswoman Kathleen McCarthy said. . .

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