Budget Proposal Seeks Home Health Care Copay

As we head into the wrap up of OEP Congress and the President will be busy trying to work on making Medicare a fiscally viable program. One of the latest proposals would affect Medicare’s Home Health Care benefit:

• A large portion of the proposed budgetary increase is supposed to come from instituting $100 Medicare copayments for Medicare patients who use home health care. 
• The $100 copayment is supposed to produce $730 million from patients who currently use home health care but do not pay for the services they receive.
• The proposed copayment would apply to episodes of care requiring five or more visits over a period of 60 days or less, which in 2008 would have applied to 63 percent of episodes.
• The problem with the assumption that many people are using home health care that could instead seek outpatient care is that home health care prevents a lot of inpatient hospital stays.

Join us at Senior Marketing Specialist for the first of two webinars this Wednesday November 20^th to find out more about an inexpensive answer to help your clients recover at home, regardless of other coverage including Medicare.