Home Health & Hospice Week

New senate letter circulates on the face-to-face requirement. The public is taking notice of the stifling new face-to-face encounter requirement for home health agencies. For example: Minnesota Public Radio reported on the F2F requirement, noting that it aimed to fight fraud, but instead wraps legitimate providers in red tape. "Let's laser in on some of the bad actors, and not just throw constant regulation over the people who are trying to do the right thing," the Minnesota Home Care Association's Neil Johnson told the radio station. Some Medicare beneficiaries have too much trouble leaving the home and can't get a doctor to visit them, the radio station said. Home care advocates continue to lobby for changes to the troublesome F2F requirement. In a May 2 "Dear Colleague" letter, Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) tell CMS Administrator Donald Berwick about the "potential negative impact of these rules on [...]