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Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Notes:

Potential HHA Copay Will Hurt Seniors

Published on Fri Jan 28, 2011

Apotential home health copayment continues to garner mainstream press attention, and industry advocates hope the focus will help constituents tell their representatives that they don't want it. Seniors using home care are "on a fixed income," Linda Hotchkiss, CEO of Rochester District Visiting Nurse Association, told the Foster's Daily Democrat newspaper in New Hampshire. "If they get income of $900 a month, half of them can't buy their drugs. If their doctor says $150 for home care, they won't do it. They're barely paying their bill now." The Democrat is just one of scores of newspapers to run stories about the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's proposal, which is hotly opposed by home care providers (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XX, No. 4, p. 26). MedPAC's aim of curbing fraud and abuse with the copay is "like taking a meat cleaver instead of a surgical approach," said John Albert, president and CEO [...]
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