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Home Health & Hospice Week

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MedPAC Recommends Big Cuts To HHA, Hospice Rates

Published on Tue Sep 27, 2011

Copays, pay updates and hospice in SNFs feature in advisory body's latest suggestions. Home health agencies aren't going to have an easy time fighting off a copayment proposal this legislative session, and a new list of cost-cutting suggestions from an influential advisory body to Congress won't help. In its September meeting, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission proposed a set of draft recommendations with a host of HHA and hospice items. The list includes recommendations MedPAC has made in previous reports to Congress (Tier I) and new suggestions (Tier II). The proposals aim to offset a fix to the physician sustainable growth rate reimbursement problem. One of the biggest money-generators in the Tier I list is an HHA copay, which MedPAC last year tentatively suggested be set at $150 for episodes with no preceding hospital stay. Such a copay would strip $2 billion from Medicare spending over the next five years [...]
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