The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC), in its efforts to advocate for home care and hospice patients and providers across the country, will be holding its annual “March on Washington” event April 1-2. During this two-day event hundreds of Congressional visits made by home care and hospice advocates will take place. The goal is to educate Senators and Representatives to help them adopt common-sense public policy that best serves Americans to age at home with dignity. This is particularly critical at a time when new laws and regulations continue to impact the home health care and hospice community.
NAHC is the unified voice of the home care and hospice industry, representing the nation’s 33,000 home care and hospice provider firms, along with the more than two million nurses, therapists, and aides they employ. All NAHC members are invited to join their colleagues on Capitol Hill to make an even greater impact on the association’s current efforts in the halls of Congress, and to ensure that its voice is heard by influential lawmakers while also building essential relationships with lawmakers who will serve as NAHC ambassadors.
Some of the issues to be addressed this year with Congressional leaders include:
- PDGM – to stop Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM)-related rate cuts
- NPP – to allow non-physician practitioners the authority to order home health under Medicare
- Rural add-on – to ensure safeguards for rural patients and providers
Other important developments taking place in the home health care industry involve the continued shift toward Medicare Advantage with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) last year announcing that some non-skilled in-home care services would be allowable as supplemental benefits under the program. As a result, home care providers are looking to form payer partnerships, strengthen their data-collection efforts and determine how to best capitalize on this new opportunity.
In addition, home health care providers have begun to launch specialized care programs for heart failure, COPD, dementia and other complex conditions, shifting the industry to one that is even more clinical and specialized in the years to come.
Manchester Specialty Programs focuses on protecting the home health care and hospice industry with comprehensive insurance and risk management solutions. We are the exclusively endorsed NAHC Affinity Program Partner for NAHC members for business insurance, and provide preferred pricing for Workers’ Compensation coverage to eligible members. We also offer General Liability, Professional Liability, Management Liability, Cyber Liability and Non-Owned & Hired Auto insurance, among other key coverages. For more information about how we can help you protect your insureds, please contact us at 855.972.9399.