Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Medicare To Increase Payments For Home Health Care
Modern Healthcare: Home Health Provider Medicare Pay To Rise
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has tossed a plan to reduce home health reimbursements by $810 million next year and will give providers a 0.7% pay increase that amounts to $125 million. CMS published on Monday the final rule setting Medicare fees for home health services next year. Home health industry groups strenuously objected to the proposed cuts and threatened to sue if CMS carried them out. (Kacik, 10/31)
Axios: Home Health Providers Get Reprieve From Medicare Cuts
The $125 million increase announced Monday is a reprieve of sorts after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed an $810 million cut in June. Providers hinted at legal action following the proposal. Instead, reductions will be phased in over two years, spreading out the pain for a health sector that's grappled with staffing shortages and rising costs. (Goldman, 11/1)
Modern Healthcare: CMS Increases ESRD Facilities 2023 Payment
Dialysis providers will receive a 3.1% pay increase from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2023, the agency announced in a final rule issued Monday. CMS will hike the base rate paid for dialysis services by $7.67 to $265.57. Hospital-based end-stage renal disease providers will receive an estimated 3.1% increase in payments and freestanding facilities will receive 3%, according to CMS. Come 2023, the agency will also permanently bar ESRD facilities from decreasing workers’ wages by more than 5% annually, regardless of the circumstances causing the decline, according to the rule. (Tepper, 10/31)
The latest readmission penalties are out —
KHN: Medicare Fines For High Hospital Readmissions Drop, But 2,300 Facilities Are Still Penalized
Federal officials said they are penalizing 2,273 hospitals, the fewest since the fiscal year that ended in September 2014. Driving the decline was a change in the formula to compensate for the chaos caused by the covid-19 pandemic. (Rau, 11/1)
KHN: Look Up Your Hospital: Is It Being Penalized By Medicare?
Each year, Medicare punishes hospitals that have high rates of readmissions and high rates of infections and patient injuries. Check out which hospitals have been penalized. (10/31)
And in news about Medicaid —
The Colorado Sun: More Than 200,000 Colorado Kids Could Lose Medicaid Coverage Starting Next Year, Though Many Remain Eligible For Government Help
Hundreds of thousands of Coloradans who rely on government-subsidized health insurance programs could lose coverage beginning next year, many of them children whose families otherwise can’t afford the checkups, vaccines and preventive care kids need in their earliest years. It’s a problem bearing down on families across the country with the federal public health emergency set to expire Jan. 11. (Breunlin, 11/1)
