Healthcare Refrom, Good For Home Health?

September 28, 2011 7:50 PM

I am looking for articles and (to a lesser extent) professional/academic works that argue or present the idea that healthcare reform will be good for the home health care industry.

It would be especially good if this point was addressed from a business perspective (i.e., business would either do better or not be much worse under PPACA), but pieces focusing on patient outcomes is good too. Also okay subjects would be other Obama-era reforms that aren't technically part of PPACA, as long as the article's focus is on the benefits, or lack of harm, to home health care.

I am looking specifically for issues related to home health care; I realize these may come as parentheticals.

It's been hard for me to find pieces that aren't scaremongering from 2009, or that really take home health care into account. Thanks for your help.

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

The fact that the Obama Administration appears to be (as usual!) backing down on ever implementing the CLASS act removes the single biggest connection between health reform and the home health care industry. The CLASS act (which was originally included in the health reform bill that passed last year) would have been one of the most beneficial pieces of Federal legislation ever passed for home health care. Now the Administration is distancing itself and appears prepared to throw the whole thing away.

There are other benefits for home health care, most broadly the general increase in subsidies for health coverage for the non-Medicare population, some of which will no doubt go to home health care, and lots of little tiny detail things. But losing the CLASS act is huge.
posted by zipadee at 8:12 PM on September 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

The National Association for Home Care and Hospice also has a detailed list of the smalller payment/regulatory provisions in health reform that impact home health care. There are just detailed reg/payment changes (lots of cuts in Medicare reimbursement) as opposed to the broad structural changes like CLASS or the Medicaid / exchange expansions. The coverage expansions should benefit home health care a lot more than the payment cuts. Of course, with the current budgetary environment in DC we may be looking at a situation where many or even most of the coverage expansions in health reform are rolled back but the Medicare reimbursement cuts stay.
posted by zipadee at 8:22 PM on September 28, 2011 [1 favorite]