Are Medicare certified home health providers taking too big a risk by answering rate cuts with more and longer episodes? A leading research firm reports CMS, MedPAC and Congress are watching closely as total Medicare reimbursements for home health services continue to grow despite annually lower payment rates.
According to CMS data, the number of Medicare certified home health care agencies now exceeds 11,000. New research into that data by Healthcare Market Resources has brought to light a new and better way of understanding the general health of the Medicare home health care industry in an era of healthcare reform. It also helps to explain why the industry’s software vendors seem to be scratching their heads over the phenomenon of growing numbers of agencies but flat sales.
Proper therapy utilization in home care has been in the news lately. Moving quickly, software vendor Delta Health Technologies has signed up to sponsor another Fazzi Associates research project designed to develop guidance for home health agencies on excellence in therapy services.
Cisco took its video-based medical communications system to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, signaling its long-range intention to market a version of the system, which many have seen Jack Bauer use on TV’s “24,” directly to the public.
The research is nearly 10 years old but still valid. Shaving a day or two off the end of a hospital stay saves only about 5% of the cost of admission. This is because most of the costs are incurred at the beginning of an admission. Whether hospitalization occurs due to scheduled or emergency surgery, […]
