Category: Regulation

Breakdown of Governor Baker’s FY17 State Budget for Home Care

Confronting a $635 million budget gap and steep spending increases in several areas, including MassHealth, Governor Charlie Baker’s administration released a $39.5 billion budget plan that aims to reduce growth while investing in more efficient programs.

On a conference call with stakeholders, state Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders thanked the Home Care Alliance for collaboration on a package of proposed solutions that are slated to go into effect by March 1st. As noted in previous newsletters and emails to HCA members, MassHealth is seeking to establish a prior authorization process, a moratorium on new home health providers, and a conflict-free physician referral process. This includes a closer scrutiny on medication administration visits and clients with a high utilization rate of home health aides.

Secretary Sudders reported on the call that audits will be conducted effective immediately. She also explained that there are currently 195 certified home health agencies in the Commonwealth and 12 were referred to the MassHealth Fraud Unit under the state’s Attorney General’s Office. The HCA will continue to monitor audit activity and provide pertinent updates.

More generally in the Health and Human Services budget, MassHealth Managed Care and MassHealth Senior Care are receiving funding increases while the Fee-for-Service line item continues to decrease reflecting a move to programs like Senior Care Options (SCO), OneCare and other managed care services.

In the elder services line items, the Enhanced Home Care or ECOP program was consolidated into several line items by the Baker administration. The bulk of what was a $70 million line item went to Home Care Purchased Services and Case Management under the Aging Service Access Points (ASAPs).

Below are some other notable items related to home care in the Governor’s FY17 budget:

  • Nursing Home Supplemental Rates increased by $30 million. This is due to an increase to assessments on SNFs.
  • The line item for MassHealth Managed Care increases $149.1 million and the MassHealth Senior Care account rises by $160.4 million, while the MassHealth Fee-for-service item goes down by $113.7 million.
  • Elder Protective Services funding was increased by $4.9 million.
  • DPH’s Pediatric Palliative Care Network was essentially level-funded at $1.8 million.
  • Elder Nutrition (Meals on Wheels) was also nearly level funded at $7.2 million.
  • The Nursing and Allied Health Education Workforce Development item was eliminated. Last year it was funded at $200,000 by the legislature after being zeroed out by the Governor.

The budget process moves on to the House and Senate and further updates  – on both the budget as well as the HCA’s work with MassHealth on program changes to home health services – will be shared as information becomes available.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

 

HPC Releases Proposed ACO Standards for Comment

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is in the midst of a massive initiative to transform MassHealth payment and care delivery through the creation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO). MassHealth has convened eight separate work groups to provide input and recommendations on various aspects of this transformation. The Home Care Alliance is represented on six of those eight work groups.

In support of that initiative, the state’s Health Policy Commission (HPC) this week released a set of draft ACO certification standards.

According to the HPC, the purpose of the certification program is to “complement existing local and national care transformation and payment reform efforts, validate value-based care, and promote investments by all payers in efficient, high-quality, and cost-effective care across the continuum.”

The HPC’s proposed standards include criteria, documentation requirements and questions for public comment. HCA intends to comment, so any members with thoughts, suggestions or answers on any of the proposed criteria or questions should contact James Fuccione at the Alliance.

For those looking to submit comments independent of the HCA, a public hearing will be hosted by the HPC on January 6 and the overall submission deadline for written feedback is January 29. That may seem like a far-off deadline, but with the holidays and the state’s budget process kicking up, any comments submitted to HCA well before that date would be appreciated.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

CMS Releases Final Home Health Rule, Adds Discharge Planning Proposal

CMS published the Final Rule for Medicare Home Health PPS and VBP for CY 2016 to its website yesterday.  The official notice will be published in the Federal Register on November 5.

CMS also announced a “Discharge Planning Proposed Rule,” that is estimated to cost home health agencies nationwide about $283 million. The proposal, which the Home Care Alliance will fully analyze, will revise discharge planning processes for hospitals, long-term care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and critical access hospitals in addition to home health.

In terms of changes made to the Home Health Final Rule, CMS pulled back slightly regarding both payment and in the Value Based Purchasing Program. Below is an analysis from HCA staff:

Value Based Purchasing:

The final rule makes minor changes to the VBP system from the proposed rule.  The same nine states (including MA) are selected, with all agencies in the state included in the VBP system.  VBP will begin January 1, 2016, with a 2015 baseline year on performance, with all agencies within each selected state competing against each other for payment adjustments tied to quality performance measures.

CMS made a small concession to industry concerns that the proposed risk corridor was too broad, and reduced the maximum payment reduction in the first year of the VBP from the proposed 5 percent to 3 percent. The payment adjustments will be increased incrementally over the course of the model with: 

  • a maximum payment adjustment of  3-percent (upward or downward) in 2018,
  • a maximum payment adjustment of 5-percent (upward or downward) in 2019,
  • a maximum payment adjustment of 6-percent (upward or downward) in 2020,
  • a maximum payment adjustment of 7-percent (upward or downward) in2021, and
  • a maximum payment adjustment of 8-percent (upward or downward) in 2022.

CMS dropped 4 process measures and 1 of the new reporting measures. The final set of 24 measures includes 10 outcome measures, 6 process measures, 5 HHCAHPS, and 3 New Measures.

Outcome Measures

  • Improvement in Pain Interfering with Activity-M1242
  • Improvement in Dyspnea- M1400
  • Improvement in Bathing-M1830
  • Improvement in Bed Transferring-M1850
  • Improvement in Ambulation-Locomotion M1860
  • Prior Functioning ADL/IADL-M1900
  • Improvement in Management of Oral Medications-M2020
  • Discharged to Community-M2420
  • Acute Care Hospitalization: Unplanned Hospitalization during first 60 days of Home Health- (Claims)
  • Emergency Department Use without Hospitalization- (Claims)

Process Measures

  • Influenza Vaccine Data Collection Period: Does this episode of care include any dates on or between October 1 and March 31?-M1041
  • Influenza Immunization Received for Current Flu Season-M1046
  • Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Vaccine Ever Received-M1051
  • Reason Pneumococcal vaccine not received-M1056
  • Drug Education on All Medications Provided to Patient/Caregiver during all Episodes of Care-M2015
  • Care Management: Types and Sources of Assistance-M2102

Home Health CAHPS: Satisfaction Survey Measures

  • Care of Patients
  • Communications between Providers and Patients
  • Specific Care Issues
  • Overall rating of home health care
  • Willingness to recommend the agency

New Measures

  • Influenza Vaccination Coverage for Home Health Care Personnel
  • Herpes zoster (Shingles) vaccination: Has the patient ever received the shingles vaccination?
  • Advance Care Plan

CMS has modified the reporting of the New Measures; HHAs will be required to begin reporting data (through a web portal) no later than October 7, 2016, for the period July, 2016, through September, 2016, and quarterly thereafter. As a result, the first quarterly performance report in July, 2016, will not account for any of the New Measures.

CY2016 PPS Rates

Case Mix Weights:  CMS made additional minor changes to the case mix weights based on additional analysis.

Case Mix Adjustment:  In a slight concession to industry comments, CMS is phasing in their proposed 2.88% case mix adjustment over three years instead of the two years they initially proposed.  So the final rule decreases the national, standardized 60-day episode payment amount by 0.97% each year in CY 2016, CY 2017, and CY 2018, instead of 1.44% for just 2016 and 2017. 

Market Basket Update:  The final CY 2016 home health market basket (2.3 percent) combined with the multifactor productivity adjustment (0.4 percentage points) results in a 1.9 percent home health payment update percentage.

Wage Index:  CMS made additional small adjustments to the Wage Index because they used an updated database of hospital wage data.  The final wage index is slightly lower than the proposed index for every geographic region in MA except Berkshire County.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org

Applications for Home Care NOI to Open on Nov. 2

According to the Executive Office of Elder Affairs (EOEA), the Notice of Intent (NOI) Application will open on Monday, November 2nd and will remain opened until necessary in order to conduct system and/or document updates.

The Homemaker NOI is the process Home Care agencies must complete if they are interested in contracting with the State’s network of 26 Aging Services Access Points (ASAPs) to provide Homemaker and Personal Care services through the “State Home Care program.”

The posting for approved providers will be completed within 4-6 weeks of the submitted Application.

This link brings you to an update found on the NOI Announcements page:

http://hnoi-announce.800ageinfo.com/

Existing providers will need to confirm/update corporate data within their approved Application if any data has changed.  If a Provider’s information is staying the same, no action needs to be taken. The EOEA will keep rejected NOI Applications available for 90 days from the rejection date for purposes of re-submission. Otherwise, a new application will need to be created and submitted.

For any providers that were previously rejected in FY 15 and did not re-submit a rejected NOI Application within the 90-day period, they must create/submit a new FY 16 Application.

Please note the NOI Announcements page includes a link to the MassHealth FEW Provider Enrollment documents, including an overview document.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

HCA Applauds Tele-monitoring Support from MassHealth

After years of advocacy with the legislature and working collaboratively with MassHealth, the Home Care Alliance proudly testified at a public hearing on proposed remote patient monitoring (RPM) payment rates and regulations this week.

Alliance Legislative and Public Affairs Director James Fuccione commented that reimbursement for RPM will strengthen the ability of home health agencies to carry out their mission of keeping people healthy at home and commended MassHealth for including a broad definition that will allow agencies to be creative in their use of the service. Dana Sheer, NP of Partners Healthcare at Home, also submitted comments in support of RPM and offered recommendations on clarifying language.

The Alliance asked for clarification on a number of points, including whether an “installation/removal” fee of $50 would be paid by MassHealth for both or on each end of the set-up and removal of RPM equipment. HCA suggested that the fee be raised to $75 and paid on both ends. Additionally, the Alliance asked for guidance on how to proceed when multiple patients in the same setting could benefit from RPM services. Comments from the Alliance suggested that RPM could go a long way in assisting patients with behavioral health and substance abuse issues as well.

In his testimony, Mr. Fuccione raised the ongoing concern regarding MassHealth rates for nursing, therapy, and home health aide visits, and urged MassHealth to expedite a review and update of those rates.  He noted that the Alliance has had several recent meetings with MassHealth staff focusing on that very subject. However, the hearing was centered on the tele-monitoring proposal and the Home Care Alliance is thrilled to have spearheaded the push for reimbursement.

Massachusetts is one of only a few state Medicaid programs with financial support for RPM, which will be effective this November. MassHealth explained at the hearing that they expect a savings just within the home health program of $1.4 million.

The Alliance’s comments are available here and more updates on any changes MassHealth may make based on our comments will also be sent to member agencies.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

What Federal Court’s Overtime Ruling Means for Home Care in Mass

A federal appeals court affirmed a regulation set by the Department of Labor that opens overtime wage protections for 2 million workers nationwide, but in Massachusetts applies only to independently-hired personal care attendants (PCAs).

The Boston Globe ran an article on the court’s decision and spoke to the Alliance to confirm that Massachusetts laws already cover overtime pay workers employed by home care agencies.

To clear up lingering confusion of how this decision applies to some, but not all home care workers in the state, the Alliance sent out the following press release:

What Federal Court’s Overtime Ruling Really Means for Home Care in Mass.

State Rules on Overtime, Minimum Wage Already Shielded Home Care Agency Workers

 BOSTON, MA – While a recent Federal Court of Appeals ruling opens the door for 2 million home care workers to receive overtime pay protections across the country, in Massachusetts the ruling is business as usual for approximately 20,000 home care agency workers already protected under state law.

“For many years, home care agencies here in Massachusetts have been governed by the state regulation on paid minimum wage and overtime so this is nothing new in our industry,” said Home Care Alliance Executive Director Patricia Kelleher. “We are encouraged and pleased that the federal law has been upheld, and hope that it will prompt greater compliance and understanding among any agencies in Massachusetts that were confused about whether to follow state or federal guidelines”

Private-pay home care agencies – paid out-of-pocket by individuals and families to provide in-home supportive services – have for years been obligated to follow the Massachusetts rules on providing overtime pay and minimum wage protections. However, independently-hired and consumer-directed personal care attendants paid through MassHealth have not had such protections. In addition to minimum wage and overtime requirements, private-pay home care agencies are required to conduct comprehensive background checks on workers, carry liability insurance.  Those agencies with accreditation through the Home Care Alliance also provide worker training and supervision to deliver the best possible services.

“Different states have different laws, and the fact that Massachusetts regulations go above and beyond a majority of states is a benefit to our workforce,” said Kelleher. “Home care agencies support adopting appropriate state oversight in the interest of protecting both consumers and workers.”

 

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org

Notice of Observation Status Law Signed by President

Legislation requiring hospitals to notify Medicare beneficiaries when they are technically in an outpatient “observation” status was recently signed into law by President Obama.

The NOTICE ACT (Notice of Observation Treatment and Implication for Care Eligibility) requires hospitals to inform patients of their status when they are in observation, but not officially admitted, for more than 24 hours and classified as an outpatient. A written notice must, among other points, state that the beneficiary’s outpatient stay will not count toward the three-day inpatient stay required for the individual to be eligible for Medicare coverage of a stay a skilled-nursing facility. Hospitals will have until August 2016 to comply with the new law.

The NOTICE Act is good news for the home health agencies because tracking the status of the patient hospital stay proved to be a challenge. Patients were often unaware of whether their stay with the hospital was an inpatient admission or an observation stay leaving the HHA uncertain if Transfer/ROC OASIS were needed. Now with the implementation of this notice the HHA will be able to determine an observation stay and know that a Transfer/ROC OASIS is not needed. An Agency may choose to complete a “Significant Change in Condition” OASIS (Reason for Assessment, 5- Other follow-up) based on their agency policy.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

Advocacy Alert: Urge your US Rep to Support HHPPS Proposed Rule Letter

With another $350 million cut to Medicare home health payment and Massachusetts selected as one of nine states for a “Value-Based Purchasing” Pilot, it is important that a strong message is sent to CMS and that means getting strong support from our state’s Congressional Delegation.

A new message is posted on the Home Care Alliance’s Advocacy Center that you can easily send to your federal elected representative to gain support for a Congressional sign-on letter to CMS. Just fill out the contact information, hit “send” at the bottom of the page, and the message will automatically go to your member of Congress.

The letter, which can be seen below, voices concern about the burdensome payment reductions and severe Value-Based Purchasing penalty in CMS’ proposed rule. Home health care champion Congressman Jim McGovern is co-leading the effort – known as a “dear colleague” letter in Congress – and the Alliance continues to appreciate his ongoing support of our issues.

Here is the text of the letter:

The Honorable Andy Slavitt
Acting Administrator
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
7500 Security Boulevard
Baltimore, Maryland 21244-1850

Dear Acting Administrator Slavitt:

We are writing today to express our concern with Medicare home health funding cuts set forth in the Home Health Prospective Payment System (HHPPS) proposed rule for 2016. Home healthcare is a vital service that allows millions of the most vulnerable senior citizens and disabled individuals to receive the treatment they need in the cost-effective environment they most prefer – their home. As a result, we request a careful reconsideration of two of the draft policy changes in light of their anticipated impact on homebound Medicare beneficiaries and the home health delivery system upon which they depend.

First, we are concerned with the draft HHPPS rule’s proposal to cut home health payment rates by an additional 1.72 percent in 2016 and again in 2017. This proposed “case mix” reduction is of concern because it appears to be based on a 2000-2010 case mix weight change analysis rather than changes in the condition of beneficiaries during the 2012 to 2014 period that Medicare proposes to address.

Second, the draft rule proposes a Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) program that would impose an incentive/penalty range of as much as 5 to 8 percent over a 5-year period. We are very concerned with the aggressive nature in which the Secretary intends to ramp up HHVBP. Implementing a VBP program with a 5 percent withhold that increases to 8 percent just three years later is too much too fast. We are also concerned that the Secretary is proposing 25 measures for use in the HHVBP— far too many for providers to focus on.

In closing, we wish to express our concern that, in its current form, the draft rule may drive Medicare reimbursement to unsustainable levels for thousands of small, rural and other home health providers across the country, impacting the care upon which many of the most vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries, as well as their communities, depend. As a result, we request that the Agency reconsider its proposed case mix cut until it evaluates the specific causes of case mix weight changes from 2012 to 2014 and consider a more reasonable implementation schedule for the proposed withhold amount in the HHVBP program.

We thank you for your attention to this critical matter.

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org

HCA Announces Sample Policies for Earned Sick Time Compliance

New regulations on paid earned sick time went into effect on July 1st and many companies, if not entire industries, are working to follow the rules.

The Home Care Alliance has kept member home care agencies up to date with analysis on regulation changes and informational webinars complete with Q & A’s, but some agencies have asked the HCA for sample earned sick time policies.

Fortunately, Alliance staff and a task force of HR directors from member agencies drafted such a sample policy, which was reviewed by attorneys Allyson Kurker and Margaret Paget of Kurker Paget LLC. In addition, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) who was responsible for the regulation itself has posted a sample policy on their Earned Sick Time webpage and the Retailers Association of Massachusetts (RAM) also have publicly available policy templates that may be useful to home care agencies.

These resources are available below:

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.

CMS Announces Proposed Home Health PPS Update for 2016; Massachusetts Included in Value-Based Pilot

Massachusetts is one of nine states randomly assigned to pilot the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) model, which is included in the calendar year 2016 Medicare Home Health PPS Rule released by CMS.

VBP will test whether incentives for better care can improve outcomes in the delivery of home health services.  The model will apply a payment reduction or increase to current Medicare-certified home health agency payments, depending on quality performance, for ALL agencies delivering services within the nine selected states.  Payment adjustments will be applied on an annual basis, beginning at five percent and increasing to eight percent in later years of the initiative.

According to CMS, the model is designed so there is no selection bias, participant states are representative of home health agencies nationally, and there is sufficient participation to generate meaningful results among all Medicare-certified home health agencies nationally.

The proposed rule implements the third year of the four year phase-in of the rebasing adjustments to the HH PPS required by the Affordable Care Act.  The CY 2016 downward adjustment to the national standard episode rate is $80.95.  CMS also proposes to recalibrate the HH PPS case-mix weights for CY 2016, which would be the second year of recalibration and identical to CY 2015.

In addition, the proposed rule includes a decrease to the national, standardized 60-day episode payment amount by 1.72 percent in each of CY 2016 and CY 2017 to account for nominal case-mix coding intensity growth unrelated to changes in patient acuity between CY 2012 and CY 2014.  CMS will also be updating the HH PPS payment rates by the home health payment update percentage, 2.3 percent in CY 2016.

For the Home Health Quality Reporting Program, in keeping with the requirements of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (the IMPACT Act), CMS is proposing one standardized cross-setting measure for CY 2016 under the skin integrity and changes to skin integrity domain.  Measures for the IMPACT Act’s other domains will be addressed through future rule-making, although CMS is seeking feedback on four future, cross-setting measure constructs to potentially meet requirements of the IMPACT Act.

In order for home health agencies to avoid a two percent reduction in their annual HH payment update percentage, the rule further proposes to require all home health agencies to submit both admission and discharge OASIS assessments for a minimum of 70 percent of all patients with episodes of care occurring during the reporting period starting July 1, 2015.  CMS proposes to incrementally increase this compliance threshold by ten percent in each of the subsequent periods (July 1, 2016 and July 1, 2017) to reach 90 percent.

CMS has prepared a fact sheet about the proposed rule and a press release about the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing model.  The proposed rule will be officially published in the Federal Register on July 10, 2015. CMS will accept comments on the proposed rule, including comments about the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing model, until September 4, 2015.

The Alliance will closely examine the Value-Based Purchasing proposal — as well as all other aspects of the proposed rule — and will present a briefing for members within the next weeks.

We will work with the state associations in the other states chosen for the pilot to advocate for any needed changes to the program to protect agency cash flow and operational integrity.  We will also develop educational sessions for our members over the next months.  Stay tuned!

Return to www.thinkhomecare.org.