Putting Home Health Patients Over Paperwork

In February, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released an update on its efforts to put patients over paperwork for home healthcare. CMS’ Patients Over Paperwork engagement team recently met with nearly 100 home health agencies to perform interviews, observational visits and listening sessions to gather information.

Through these interactions, CMS was able to better understand current bureaucratic challenges that restrict home health providers’ ability to provide cost-effective, clinically advanced care to homebound seniors.

CMS created the tool below, “The Home Health Journey: Navigating the Home Health Maze” to highlight the barriers providers and their patients might face when navigating regulations and requirements:

The Partnership commends CMS for recognizing the improvements needed to prioritize patients without compromising their home health experience. Reducing unnecessary paperwork and regulation is especially important when the health care system is working overtime to ensure the health and safety of all Americans, particularly the Medicare population during public health emergencies.

We look forward to working with CMS to reduce administrative burden in a meaningful way that benefits both Medicare beneficiaries and the healthcare system as a whole.

To learn more about CMS’ updated efforts, visit the Patients over Paperwork page.