2023 Home-Based Care Outlook Survey

Home Health Care News

Challenges persist, but participants of the Home-Based Care Outlook 2023 survey are largely optimistic about the future of the industry despite staffing and payment hurdles ahead.

HHCN is pleased to share the results of our Home-Based Care Outlook 2023 survey revealing how providers are:

• Overcoming staffing challenges
• Approaching growth
• Investing in technology
• Navigating the final payment rule for CY 2023
• And more!

See Attached Report

Find Opportunities to Partner with MA Plans, Experts Advise Home Health Agencies

McKnight’s Home Care / By Diane Eastabrook

Home health agencies must leverage Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, not avoid them. That word came Tuesday from a home health consultant during a webinar for National Association for Home Care & Hospice members.

“We are at a pivotal moment,” Lindsay Doak, senior manager for BerryDunn, an accounting assurance and consulting firm, explained during a NAHC webinar highlighting the booming MA landscape. “It is a growing presence state by state, county by county. We are going to see 40 million enrollees or more over the next decade or so in Medicare Advantage plans.” 

The statistics Doak presented during the webinar bear that out. In 2007, MA enrollment comprised less than 20% of total Medicare-eligible beneficiaries. However, by last year the plans accounted for 48% of beneficiaries, according to information attributed to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The number of MA plans has also increased nationally over the past decade. Half of Medicare beneficiaries nationwide will have access to more than 40 MA plans this year, with some having access to 75 or more plans, Doak noted. And UnitedHealthcare and Humana have the largest numbers of MA plan enrollees, with 28% and 18% of the market respectively, she pointed out. 

MA is interested in home health, given recent acquisitions and partnerships between the two, she noted. Home health can position itself to work with MA plans because of its value proposition: it is considered the lowest-cost setting for healthcare, it can manage a mobile workforce and it can lower hospitalization scores.

“We’ve got to get a seat at that table,” Doak said. 

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President's Message

Posted: February 7, 2023

Despite what other groups are offering, PT After Dark is happening at CSM on Thursday, February 23, from 9 PM to 11 PM at the Hilton Bayfront in Aqua DEF. This will be the PT After Dark that we all remember from before the pandemic, with hard topics, hard conversations, and open-minded, welcoming people. I look forward to seeing you there.

Please also join us for our Meet and Greet event on Wednesday, February 22, at 6:30 PM, at the Hilton Bayfront in Aqua 300. Light refreshments will be served. Also, don’t miss our Annual Meeting on Friday, February 24, at 6:30 PM, also at the Hilton Bayfront in Aqua 300. Dinner will be served, and our agenda will include our annual awards and our new strategic plan.

Sincerely, 

Phil Goldsmith
President
APTA Home Health

How The Public Health Emergency Helped Cut Regulatory Red Tape For Home Health Agencies

Home Health Care News | By Joyce Famakinwa
 
With the public health emergency (PHE) set to finally end on May 11, home health stakeholders are finding that the impact won’t be as disruptive as once feared.
 
This is because most of the biggest issues have already been addressed by Congress and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
 
“Congress addressed the face-to-face encounter side of it, so we’re not going to be losing as much as we might have, if that hadn’t happened,” Bill Dombi, president of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), told Home Health Care News. “For example, CMS early on in the pandemic made permanent the ability of home health agencies to use virtual visits, if authorized by the treating physician or treating practitioner.”
 
This means that the required face-to-face encounter for home health services can take place through telehealth.
 
Another factor that will potentially lessen the negative impact of the PHE ending is the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver — which was originally tied to the PHE — getting an extension through the omnibus spending bill, Moving Health Home Founder Krista Drobac told HHCN.
 
“We were successful in decoupling the waiver related to acute care in the home from the PHE at the end of last year when we secured the two-year extension,” she said. “Now we’re focused on educating Congress about the other barriers that didn’t get waived during the PHE but are necessary for providing patients more options in the home.”
 
Drobac noted that Moving Health Home is pushing for a bill that will potentially be introduced in the House.
 
“It will give patients the options for care in the home,” she said. “There’s a lot of pieces that are still missing related to home infusion, home dialysis, home-based primary care, home-based imaging, home-based labs and even Medicare personal care services. We’ve taken a look across the full spectrum of all the things that need to change in order for a patient to truly be able to stay home in a variety of different cases, so we’ll be introducing legislation there.”
 
Still, there are some concerns providers should keep their eye on with the PHE coming to an end in the spring.

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Read the Statment of Administration Policy related to theend of the COVID19 Public Health Emergency and National Emergency