HCA Achieves Gains for Home Care in House Health Care Bill

With the passage of a major health care payment reform bill by both the state’s senate and house of representatives, the Alliance will advocate for the successes gained in each version as the proposals advance.

In the recently passed House version, the Alliance was successful in advocating that home health and hospice services are included in the definition of “health care services” under an Accountable Care Organization able to accept global payments.

Other provisions achieved, include:

• An amendment to strengthen the relationship between Patient-Centered Medical Homes and federally-certified home care agencies by ensuring that those agencies are available through the medical home to provide “after-hours” availability to home care patients.

• An amendment that  improves the state’s “fair share contribution” calculation for determining an employer’s percentage of insured workers. With this amendment, any employee insured through a spouse, parent, Medicare/Medicaid, a veterans’ plan or disability plan would NOT be counted towards the employer’s test by the state and thus reduces the chance the employer would have to pay the “fair share contribution” penalty ($295 per employee).

• An amendment adding “a community-based organization or group of community-based organizations” to those entities available to receive funding from the Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund.

• An amendment ensuring that community-based behavioral health providers are included in the state’s health information technology planning process and that providers who serve high proportions of public payer clients will be given priority in receiving funding through a “health information technology revolving loan fund.”

The Alliance will continue to advocate for these provisions, in addition to those gained in the Senate, which can be seen in our blog post on the Senate’s passage of their payment reform bill.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.