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Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

BUDGET:

President's Proposed Rate Cuts Threaten HHAs

Published on Fri Feb 13, 2009

President's and MedPAC's recommendations are a double whammy. Home health agencies' honeymoon with new president Barack Obama appears to be over. HHAs were hopeful that the Obama administration  would be supportive of the home care benefit, judging from comments Obama and his advisers made on the campaign trail. But in the budget blueprint the president released Feb. 27, Obama calls for $550 million in cuts to home health in 2010 and a whopping $37 billion over 10 years. That translates to a 3.4 percent cut to HHA rates next year and a 6 percent cut in 2011, says the Visiting Nurse Associations of America. The budget outline is light on details, saying only that the cuts would "improve Medicare home health payments to align with costs." The cuts would  include a freeze on inflation updates for five years, says the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. Watch out: Combined [...]
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