The Center for Medicare Advocacy (the Center) submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) about the devastating impact a proposed rule will have on access to Medicare home health care for vulnerable older and disabled people.
The proposed rule purports “to better align payment with patient care needs and better ensure that clinically complex and ill beneficiaries have adequate access to home health care.” (See pages 32380-32381). However, the rule provides significant incentives for home health agencies to serve post-acute care patients for brief periods of time. In turn, the proposed Medicare payment model will further diminish access to care, particularly for people with complex, longer-term and chronic conditions – people who are already often unable to access the care they need. Simply put, the Patient Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) is not guided by the needs of patients. It will exacerbate an existing crisis in access to home health care for people most in need.
The deadline to submit Comments to CMS is 5:00 pm EDT on Friday, August 31. Comments can be filed at http://www.regulations.gov. The Center encourages additional comments to CMS and invites use of our comments to amplify urgent concerns that the proposals would further limit access to Medicare-covered home health care for vulnerable people who qualify under the law.
Read our full comments: https://www.medicareadvocacy.org/center-comments-on-proposed-medicare-home-health-rules/