Demonstration projects aim to keep patients out of institutions.
Seventeen states soon will put more money into keeping seniors in their homes.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is giving $23 million in grants to the states "for demonstration programs that will help build Medicaid long-term care programs to keep people in the community and out of institutions," according to a CMS release.
CMS will issue up to $1.75 billion in such grants between 2007 and 2011, it says. The funding, which was legislated in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, will "help states shift Medicaid's traditional emphasis on institutional care to a system offering greater choices for individuals and a full range of home- and community-based services," the release says.
The demonstrations are a Money Follows the Person initiative. "There is more evidence than ever that people who need long-term care prefer to remain in their own homes and communities whenever possible," CMS Acting Administrator Leslie Norwalk says. "States will also get more for their money by giving the elderly and people with disabilities more control over how and where they get the Medicaid services they need."
The states propose to use the grants to transition more than 20,000 individuals from institutions into community settings. The states are Wisconsin, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Michigan, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Hampshire, California, Indiana, Texas, South Carolina, Missouri, Iowa and Ohio. CMS may award more 2007 grants later this year. The change is part of the Bush Administra-tion's New Freedom Initiative. • If you're having to pay your physical therapists more, you're not the only one. The median hourly pay rate for home care PTs increased 3 percent in 2006 to $32.54, according to Oakland, NJ-based Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service. That's up from $31.52 in 2005, according to HCS' 2006-2007 HOMECARE Salary & Benefits Report.
And it may be getting harder to keep therapists at current pay rates. Turnover increased from 14.9 percent in 2005 to 18.5 percent in 2006, according to the compensation survey based on data from more than 1,300 home health agencies.
Home care is middle of the road for therapist pay. Hospital PTs earned $30.81 per hour in 2006, while nursing home therapists earned $33.00 per hour, HCS says. For information on ordering the report, go to
www.hhcsinc.com. • Durable medical equipment suppliers now have a new site of their own. CMS has announced it will list program transmittals specific to durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies on a distinct Web page.
The list begins with program transmittals released in December 2006. As CMS releases DME program transmittals, it will add them to the DMEPOS Transmittals list, the agency says.
To access the site, go to
www.cms.hhs.gov/DMEPOSFeeSched/DMEPOSTrans/list.asp. • States now [...]
