There are several trends shaping senior care in the United States, with two of the biggest being continued Medicare Advantage (MA) growth and the steady shift of health care into the home. Yet if in-home care operators want to capitalize on those trends, they’ll have… Read More »In-Home Care Providers Must Break Through Barriers to Handle More Long-Term Care Volume
The Global and Professional Direct Contracting Model — a Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) creation — has been put on pause. The holdup is just another example of CMMI pumping the brakes on an alternative payment model in the days since the new… Read More »Pause to Alternative Payment Models Gives Some Providers a ‘Golden Ticket,’ Leaves Others Behind
Home-based care insiders have been saying for a long time what a wider group of people are now: Care needs to be brought into the home more frequently — and quickly. But accomplishing that won’t be so simple. In fact, turning the nation’s long-term care… Read More »‘There Is Not An Easy Solution’: How to Modernize Home- and Community-Based Services
The anecdotal claims from home health insiders were true: Across the country, home health agencies gained a greater share of discharges from short-term acute care hospitals during the public health emergency. Specifically, the percentage of patients discharged into home health care rose 1.8% from March… Read More »Not a ‘Temporary Blip’: Home Health Agencies Gaining Greater Share of Hospital Discharges
In September, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released high-level data suggesting a huge expansion of new Medicare Advantage (MA) supplemental benefits for 2021. CMS followed that up with specific information on MA supplemental benefits under the “primarily health-related” pathway a month… Read More »Number of MA Plans Offering SSBCI ‘Social Needs Benefit’ Up 568% in 2021
Patients discharged from hospitals are increasingly headed to home health agencies, a new analysis from ATI Advisory shows. In May 2019, of the 801,464 patients discharged from short-term acute care hospitals (STACHs), 11% were sent to home health agencies. In May 2020, of the 558,296… Read More »New Data Confirms More Patients Are Being Discharged to Home Health Agencies
A number of major Medicare Advantage (MA) carriers are expanding their supplemental benefit offerings shaped around in-home care next year. UnitedHealthcare, the insurance arm of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), is among them. Overall, UnitedHealthcare partners with more than 1.3 million physicians and care professionals across… Read More »UnitedHealthcare Advances Home Strategy, Expects to Make 1.7M House Calls in 2020
With hundreds of plans reportedly offering in-home support services in 2021, the coming year is certain to bring more Medicare Advantage (MA) opportunities for home care agencies. But some home care operators will have more opportunities than others due to geographic variability across the MA… Read More »States with the Most ‘Primarily Health-Related’ Medicare Advantage Opportunities for Home Care Agencies
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) last month released new Medicare Advantage (MA) figures highlighting a massive expansion of plans offering home-focused supplemental benefits in 2021. The agency shared additional data on Wednesday — and it now appears the ongoing home care… Read More »Number of MA Plans Offering In-Home Support Services to Increase by 93% in 2021