Medicare Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) for 2017 Posted

As we previously reported, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) posted the proposed payment changes for the Medicare Home Health (HH) Prospective Payment System (PPS) for calendar year (CY) 2017 in the July 5th Federal Register. Important highlights of the proposed rule include another reduction in Medicare payments by 1.0 percent, or $180 million, for CY 2017.

LeadingAge NY has completed their analysis of the proposed HH PPS rule and will be joining other LeadingAge state affiliates to discuss the proposed payment changes, adoption of the four new Home Health Quality Reporting Program (HH QRP) measures, and a proposed payment change for Negative Pressure Wound Therapy using a disposable device. Of particular concern are the two proposed payment changes to the outlier methodology going from a cost-per-visit to a cost-per-unit approach and implementing a cap on the amount of time per day that would count towards the estimation of an episode’s cost for outlier calculation purposes. There are several other issues in the proposed rule that CMS has asked for your feedback on.

Please share your concerns and recommendation that I may include them with our comments to LeadingAge and to CMS. Comments are due to CMS by 5:00 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2016.

Contact: Cheryl Udell, cudell@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871