Lobbyists and some members of Congress are urging the Biden administration to abandon proposed cuts to home health service Medicare payment rates, arguing the cuts could have a lasting impact on the industry.
A proposed rule, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services releases annually to set rates for home health services, calls for a 7.96 percent permanent cut to payments starting next year. The cuts are part of the agency’s attempt to implement a new payment system for home health care that Congress passed in 2018.
The cut is intended to bring Medicare spending on home health services in line with what it spent before the implementation of the new payment system, but industry groups argue CMS’s math is wrong — and some members of Congress agree.
