Category: News & Media

Enhanced Agency GoogleMap Now Available

With 200 member agencies across the state, there’s a Home Care Alliance member near just about everyone.

Now, the Alliance is pleased to announce an improved referral tool to show exactly how close on GoogleMaps:


By clicking on an icon, the map provides contact information about each member while letting you know whether it accepts Private Care, is Medicare Certified, and/or Accredited by the Home Care Alliance.

In it’s current form, the map shows the physical locations of our members.  To do a detailed search by Service Area — i.e., where agencies actually serve — and service type, you can still rely on our Find-An-Agency Search.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Multimedia Home Care Ad Campiagn in Full Swing

The Home Care Alliance is engaged in its own campaign this fall.

The inaugural HCA Multimedia Campaign is in full swing this fall thanks to a partnership between the Alliance and WGBH where member home care agencies have the opportunity to “sponsor”  public radio programming. These sponsorships are mentioned on 89.7 WGBH (Boston Public Radio) as well as 99.5 Classical New England and direct listeners to a custom webpage with the participating member agencies.

Also rotating with other sponsors on the WGBH and Classical New England websites is a graphic that also directs people to the HCA’s custom webpage.

The sponsorships play continuously through the first week of November for participating member agencies and run on various times through the day.

These sponsorships promote the home health or home care agency, but also raise the profile of home care and generate interest in the industry at large. The listeners of these stations are overwhelmingly the demographic of people that are interested in learning more about or obtaining home care.

To hear a couple of the sample sponsorships, see the audio clips below:

The Alliance’s Colleen Bayard on the the Affordable Care Act

Colleen Bayard, the Alliance’s director of regulatory & clinical and regulatory affairs, spoke to WWLP News 22 this week about the impact of the Affordable Care Act on seniors in Massachusetts.

BOSTON (WWLP) – Government health officials say that President Obama’s national health care reform law is saving Massachusetts seniors big bucks.

Federal officials say the 2010 law has helped save Massachusetts seniors more than $76 million on medication bills this year.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Servicessays in the first eight months of this year, the Affordable Care Act has saved seniors in Medicare’s “donut hole” about $610 dollars. Previously, when seniors were in this “donut hole” they would go from making copayments for their drugs to paying 100 percent of the cost.

The law gives them significant discounts.

“There’s actually extra funding for medications for seniors,” said Colleen Bayard, the Clinical Affairs Director for the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts.

“They may not have enough money for their medications and it becomes unaffordable, but I think they’re trying to, they made changes with the medication in Medicare D to help with that.”

The average savings for a Massachusetts resident with Medicare will be $5,000. People with high prescriptions costs will save more than $18,000 from 2010 to 2022.

New Reports on Hospital Readmissions from STAAR and DHCFP

The Massachusetts State Action on Avoidable Readmission (STAAR) project has published a new report on the Patient Care Link website. The report – Reducing Readmissions: Highlights from the Massachusetts STAAR Cross Continuum Teams  – includes improvement stories from 22 of the 50 cross continuum teams working on reducing readmission.

Available on the Preventing Avoidable Readmissions page of the MA Coalition to Prevent Medical Errors website is a digest of customizable tools that eleven of the teams have made available free of charge. The STAAR work and these reports were funded by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund.

Also available from the state’s Division of Healthcare Finance & Policy (DHCFP) is a pair of new health care cost trend reports that conclude preventable hospitalizations have slowed, although preventable emergency department use has slightly risen.

The first report states that preventable hospitalizations are not driving cost growth, but remains a significant percentage of overall health care expenditures. Some of the more notable findings indicate that nearly half of preventable hospital admissions are for people aged 75 and older and 64 percent are for those over 65 years of age.

The report suggests something of no surprise to home care agencies, which is that managing chronic illnesses between non-acute health care settings is the best approach to combating the issue. However, the report further states the fee-for-service pay structure remains a barrier to that method working efficiently. Demographic influences aside from age were also noted as those lower income and some minority groups were more likely to receive costly and inefficient care that led to a higher rate of preventable hospitalizations among those groups.

As for the DHCFP report on hospital emergency department efficiency, the number of preventable ED visits rose 6.3 percent from 2006 to 2010 to a total of more than 1.17 million. Preventable or avoidable visits, the report continues, accounted for more than 45 percent of total ED visit costs.

To see both DHCFP reports, visit their  Cost Trends page.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

HCA Continues Response to Home Care Aide Report

Picking up on news stories developed by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting,  WCVB-TV in Boston plans to run a television story on the private pay home care industry, with an expected focus on the state’s lack of licensure of agencies.    While both the New England Center and WCVB have been looking for cases of private care elder mistreatment, both stories appear focused on a single case of an aide who stole from multiple clients before being charged and convicted in both the Brockton and Wareham District Courts.

Alliance Executive Director Patricia Kelleher was interviewed by WCVB for the news story.  During the interview, Ms. Kelleher emphasized the following points:

  • While no abuse is to be tolerated, instances of theft or abuse are very rare given the thousands of clients and million of visits in a given year.
  • The Alliance had filed licensure legislation in 2010 that was not passed.
  • In response to no legislative action, the Alliance and its private care members developed a rigorous industry accreditation program that establishes high standards for worker screening and training, organizational management and workforce safety.
  • Prospective clients in Massachusetts are fortunate to have a robust industry with many options to choose from.  Educated consumers are our best clients.

The Home Care Alliance has also placed letters to the editor in two major Massachusetts daily newspapers to clarify some points in the story. See HCA’s letters in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and the Springfield Republican.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

‘Home Care Votes’ Program is Back

With the deadline to register to vote rapidly approaching on August 17, the state primary election just around the corner (September 6), and the state’s general elections not far past that (November 6), the Home Care Alliance is encouraging its member agencies across the state to help “get out the vote.”  

The Alliance has a fact sheet with instructions and a sample press release (available upon request) for those agencies willing and interested in helping their homebound patients obtain absentee ballots so they can vote in the upcoming elections. With important policy issues looming, this program is a great way to mobilize a population that may not otherwise have the chance to have their voices heard.

For those interested in obtaining the sample press release, contact James Fuccione at the Alliance.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Healthcare Bill Summary

The MA legislature shifted into overdrive during the last few days of the 2011/2012 legislative session, which ended on July 31. Healthcare cost containment was among the major pieces of legislation that were approved during the last days of the session, and several provisions of the bill have significant impacts on home care providers.

Section 142 of the bill will significantly ease the burden of the Fair Share Contribution (FSC) requirement that employers offer health insurance to their workers. Under this section, any employees that have health insurance through a spouse’s coverage, military, disability, or Medicare will not be included in the calculation of an employer’s compliance with the FSC mandate. This change should be a relief to many home care agencies. Section 51 of the bill establishes appeal processes for employers faced with a FSC audit.

The bill also includes a number of provisions related to home health’s role within Accountable Care Organizations and names the Alliance to a couple of new advisory panels.

The Alliance has prepared a more detailed summary of the bill’s provisions: http://www.thinkhomecare.org/associations/1892/files/HealthcareCostContainmentSummary.pdf.

Home Care Alliance, National Organizations Make Statements on Supreme Court Decision

In light of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, the Home Care Alliance of Massachusetts and other organizations representing health care providers and consumers had this to say:

“Today’s decision of the US Supreme Court has established the Affordable Care Act as the law. With their ruling, the Supreme Court has removed enormous uncertainty – particularly in states other than Massachusetts and for those involved in ACA funded demonstrations – as to whether to move forward. They now can, and we think they must.  While some parts of the law will impact Massachusetts far less directly than other states, there is evidence that our state has already benefited by some provisions. Most notably, 62,000 seniors and people with disabilities in Massachusetts have seen significant savings on their prescription drugs because the law was upheld.

All providers, including home health care, were subject to Medicare rate reductions in the ACA in order to expand coverage and pay for reform demonstrations.  These cuts have not been easy to absorb. With this ruling, we must now get to work to deliver on the promise in our state not just of universal access to insurance, but to a better coordinated, and ultimately more cost effective delivery system.”

-Patricia Kelleher, HCA Executive Director

Statement from the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC):

“NAHC has long supported reforms that increase access to health care for all in the United States and supports health delivery reforms and the expansion of Medicaid eligibility. The ACA rightly shifts the focus of care from inpatient services and institutional care to the community setting, which home health agencies and hospices have effectively served for decades.

NAHC believes that the Affordable Care Act can and should be improved. Accordingly, NAHC will continue to work with both Democrats and Republicans to improve the legislation. NAHC will ask that its implementation date be delayed for two years so that states have the time to prepare for implementation, including the creation of exchanges. This delay will also save approximately $200 billion, which can be applied to deficit reduction, extending the SGR “doc fix” and avoiding the need for any further cuts to Medicare. NAHC will continue to argue that home health care has been cut disproportionately and will oppose the imposition of copayments or additional cuts. NAHC believes that a good case can be made for expanding the scope of Medicare home health services to reduce hospitalization costs and improve services for the 5 percent of Americans who are responsible for 50 percent of total U.S. health care costs.”

-Val Halamandaris, NAHC President

Here are other statements from the following organizations:

And statements from political leaders:

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

More News on Care Transitions Funding

Despite tremendous national interest, the new CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) has  funded only seven applicants to date under its new Care Transitions project.   While CMS will not say how many applications they received and rejected in the first round, or how many are pending review, information is slowly coming to light about the funded projects.  For entities still looking to apply – and CMMI is clear that they continue to want applicants!! – the information is potentially instructive.

One of the funded sites – in Greater Cincinnati – shared on the Medicaring blog (hosted by the non profit Altarum Institute) that they plan to serve about 5400 beneficiaries and save about $1 million using what they call a “modified Coleman Model.”   The same blog in a slightly earlier post ran an interesting piece on developing a “blended” per person rate as required by the Section 3026 budget worksheet.

Those who want more detail on what has been funded, can find a summary of projects on the CMS Care Transitions project website.  Two threads common to all projects and stressed on a call with awardees has been that  1) funded sites have some care transitions experience with a specific model and 2)  multiple hospital partners are involved.  In the case of the latter, CMS wants to see actual agreements in place, not just letters of support.

Caring Magazine Highlights Massachusetts Care Transitions Programs

The great work being done by home care agencies in Massachusetts around care transitions was highlighted in an article in the current issue of Caring Magazine, the monthly publication of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC).

In the article written by the Home Care Alliance, the focus is on four agencies involved in the STAAR project (State Action on Avoidable Readmissions) and how their collaborative programs have changed how care transitions are handled.

Additionally, the Home Care Alliance’s “Opt-In” document, a guide to Optimum Performance Standards for Transitions to and From Home Health, is highlighted and shown as a beacon for the work performed by these four agencies and any other agencies or  providers working with home health to improve care transitions.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.