September 23, 2015

133 House Lawmakers Urge Against Home Health Pay Cuts

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Inside Health Policy

A bipartisan group of 133 House lawmakers sent a letter to CMS urging against Medicare pay cuts for home health services. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) spearheaded the letter and has been gathering support since the August recess.

The lawmakers don’t want CMS to follow through with its proposal to cut home health pay by 1.72 percent in each of two years on top of pay rebasing. They say CMS seems to have based the case mix adjustment on an outdated analysis of data from 2000 to 2010, rather than basing changes on the condition of beneficiaries from 2012 to 2014, which is when the increase in average case mix weights that CMS wants to offset took place.

The lawmakers also are worried about CMS’ proposal to test a value-based purchasing model that would put home health companies at risk for up to 8 percent pay cuts by the end of the pilot, which is far higher than under similar programs for other types of providers.

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