Home health agencies top list of best falls prevention programs.
If you're looking for ways to cut your patients' risk of falling, you may want to check out the latest Falls Free Coalition Home Safety Workgroup report.
The Oct. 2 report spotlights 10 creative practices in home assessment and modification that "can reduce home hazards through replication in community based organizations," according to a press release from the Coalition.
The Creative Practices in Home Safety Assessment and Modification Study offers these observations about falls programs: * Home assessments and subsequent modifications are complex activities that require careful planning, oversight, and follow-up at all stages.
* Strategically established partnerships with organizations such as schools of nursing or home builders associations served as a common element across the selected programs.
* Some programs need specialized people to implement them effectively such as occupational therapists, and in some communities it may be difficult to access them. The report also identified several creative strategies such as collaborating with first responders and other key partners, making use of trained volunteers, and integrating a fall risk assessment program into a larger safety program aimed at keeping older adults in their homes, the Coalition noted.
Three home care agencies made the Coalition's best-of list for falls prevention programs: Saint Elizabeth Home Care Services in Lincoln, NE; VNA of Care New England in Warwick, RI; and Holy Redeemer Home Care in Philadelphia, PA.
A link to the report is at
www.homesafetycouncil.org/policy_makers/policy_fallsfree_w003.aspx.
• The fight is on over home care payments for 2008. The Senate Finance Committee met Oct. 17 to discuss ways to pay for a fix to physician payment rates in 2008 and 2009, according to press reports.
Senators were casting about for the $30 billion in cuts needed to avert the doc pay cut and make other Medicare changes, and home care once again landed on the chopping block. Home health agencies, wheelchair suppliers and oxygen providers are under discussion for reimbursement reductions to pay for the fix.
Alternative: But there is a way for home care to avoid cuts. Democrats want to finance the physician pay hike by cutting payments to Medicare managed care plans. Republicans, however, insist that rural patients depend on Medicare HMOs.
Timeline: Democratic leaders would like to mark up a Medicare bill by the end of October, but "they're dreaming," Sen. Trent Lott (R-MO) has told reporters.
The same day as the Senate Finance meeting, legislation launched to head off the HHA rate cuts for supposed case-mix creep. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and three other senators co-sponsored a bill to eliminate the 10.91 percent in cuts and revamp the way the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services can formulate such cuts in the future.
The bill is the Home Health [...]
