Here are a few interesting comments on the future of home health care from Forbes: The recent health reform changes will mean $40 billion in cuts toward home health care, according to a report issued by Oppenheimer & Co. on Monday morning. These cuts will spur consolidation in the fragmented industry that collectively took in [...]

The American College of Radiation Oncology has a brief write-up on their site regarding the recent elimination of consultation fees for radiation oncology effective January 1, 2010. You can find their full summary here. Instead of billing for a yearly consultation, the radiation oncologist can now only bill for a new patient visit every three [...]

Effective January 1, 2010, the outlier payments made to each home health agency (“HHA”) in 2010 will be subject to an annual limit of 10% of the HHA’s total Medicare PPS payments for the year. Generally, payments for Home Health PPS claims are based on a certain number of “episodes of care.” Each episode of [...]

Bloomberg is reporting that effective January 1, the Mayo Clinic will no longer see primary care Medicare patients at its Glendale, AZ facility. Mayo cited inadequate reimbursement rates as one of the primary drivers of this decision. They claim that their hospital and four clinics in Arizona collectively lost a total of $120 million on [...]

Today, CMS released the Final Rule for the 2010 Home Health Prospective Payment System Rate Update.  The complete text of the Final Rule can be found here. According to CMS, the final rule makes three key changes: – continues with the previously promulgated 2.75 percent reduction to the HH PPS rates in CY 2010 (to [...]