WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 15, 2020)—The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) reviewed the latest available data on Medicare hospice utilization and discussed potential hospice payment recommendations for FY 2022 with an eye toward their inclusion in the annual March Report to Congress.
Commission members expressed preliminary support for inclusion of the following recommendations:
BALTIMORE (December 15, 2020)—The American Academy of Home Care Medicine (Academy) has expressed concerns that the Medicare cuts beginning in 2021 threaten care for patients receiving primary care in their homes when they are being encouraged to stay home to stay safe.
DALLAS, Texas (December 15, 2020)—A new partnership will deliver enhanced interoperability for care at home provider organizations using Axxess software to improve patient outcomes.
PHILADELPHIA (December 11, 2020)—CareFinders, a growing home health care provider in the Northeast region, has expanded its footprint into Pennsylvania with the addition of Union Home Care, a provider of personal homecare services based in in the Philadelphia area.
TAMPA BAY, Fla. (December 11, 2020)—Empath Health and Stratum Health System announced that their Boards of Directors have formally approved the merger of the two organizations, pending regulatory approval. The merger will create the country’s largest not-for-profit health system delivering non-acute care and services through its skilled, significant medical and holistic programs to individuals with chronic, advanced and terminal illnesses.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 11, 2020)—As part of the year-end legislative push, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Beneficiary Enrollment Notification and Eligibility Simplification Act of 2019 (BENES Act) to address negative findings by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) regarding survey performance by Medicare-certified hospice providers.
CAESAREA, Israel (December 11, 2020)—Itamar Medical Ltd., a medical device and digital health company focused on the integration of sleep apnea management into the cardiac patient care pathway, commented on the recent release of the 2021 Physician Fee Schedule from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This Fee Schedule represents the third year of a four-year proposed plan to reevaluate reimbursement in home sleep apnea diagnostic codes.
WATERLOO, Iowa (December 9, 2020)—VGM & Associates has released the final installment of the 2020 playbook, “VGM Playbook: Turn Data Into Revenue.”
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. (December 9, 2020)—Numotion and LUCI announced a national distribution agreement that will make smart wheelchair technology directly available to power wheelchair riders for the first time ever. Through the historic agreement, Numotion, a provider of Complex Rehab Technology (CRT), becomes the first U.S. partner for LUCI’s first-of-its-kind hardware/software product, which attaches to power wheelchairs to provide security, stability and connectivity.
NEW YORK, (December 9, 2020)—Amidst the COVID-19 global pandemic, the decrease in nursing home residents has created a rapidly increasing demand for additional home caregivers. This surge has resulted in an urgency for updated access to appropriate training and other onboarding within the industry.
