Thanks to the advocacy efforts of the Home Care Alliance and the cooperation of legislative home care champions, Congressmen Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) are circulating a letter to be sent to federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urging her agency to utilize the authority given in the Affordable Care Act to establish a temporary and targeted moratorium on new home health providers to control fraud and abuse in troubled areas.
Alliance staff drafted the letter, which is now a bipartisan effort that is seeking support from Congressional representatives from across the country. HCA has sent direct letters to Secretary Sebelius in the past and has supported drives by national associations towards getting a temporary and targeted moratorium established. The fact that the entire industry has been punished for the actions of a few agencies in a few areas of the US has driven the repeated attempts at lobbying HHS. This moratorium action certainly would not halt fraudulent and abusive practices, but it does help to contain the problem, especially in areas that have seen dramatic growth in the number of certified home health agencies.
The Alliance strongly encourages its members and supporters to contact their representative and urge them to sign on. Let your federal representative offices know that they should contact Congressman McGovern’s office to sign on.
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