But don't count on 2008 payment rates quite yet.
It looks as though House legislators may be coming around to Senators' point of view on the SCHIP bill, and that could be very good for home care providers. At press time, House lawmakers were indicating they would cut most or all of the Medicare provisions in the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill they passed last month. That would bring the House bill more in line with the Senate SCHIP legislation, also passed in August, which contains no Medicare provisions. History: The House bill includes a freeze on HHApayment rates and cuts to oxygen and wheelchair reimbursement. Don't breathe yet: Congressional insiders say separate legislation later this year will address Medicare revisions. That means home care providers will still be on the budget chopping block to pay for averting the 10 percent payment cut to physicians' Medicare payment rates, experts predict.
"It's good news for now, but we're not out of the woods yet," warns Kathy Thompson with the Visiting Nurse Associations of America. Watch for an end-of-session omnibus spending bill to contain Medicare cuts, Thompson tells Eli. • A new report gives home health agencies a glimpse at how clients view them. Though most patients are fairly satisfied with their agency's service, agencies could improve their satisfaction scores. Key finding: Home offices should do a better job responding to patient requests and complaints, according to the study, released Sept. 18 by Press Ganey. "The greatest source of patient dissatisfaction is not with the visit itself but dealing with the home care office on issues like changing nurses or aides and handling emergencies," concludes the report. The study also found that Medicare patients reported the highest overall satisfaction with home care services. To view the full report, "Home Care Pulse Report: Patient Perspectives on American Health Care," go to
www.pressganey.com/homecare-report.pdf. • A few bad apples may be spoiling your Medicare reimbursement for outliers. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services appears to have upped the fixed dollar loss (FDL) threshold for outliers due to fraudulent billing in Southern Florida, reports the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. Over industry protests, CMS hiked the FDL ratio from a proposed 0.67 to 0.89 in the final rule (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XVI, No. 30). That's despite the fact that HHAs historically haven't used all of the 5 percent outlier reimbursement pool set aside under PPS. But now outlier spending growth does appear poised to exceed the 5 percent level due to suspected abuse in South Florida, NAHC reveals. "The Program Safeguard Contractor reports more than $277 million in outlier payments for insulin-dependent diabetics in Miami-Dade, an amount which is greater than [...]
