Lawmakers Seeking To Block Home Health Medicare Cuts

The Preserving Access to Home Health Act of 2023 was introduced with the primary aim of preventing future cuts to home health payments beyond 2024. If passed, the bill would curtail the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) authority over payment-rate setting and require the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to consider Medicare Advantage (MA) payment rates in its reports. This legislation seeks to limit CMS's ability to make permanent or temporary adjustments to payment rates, providing more stability to home health providers. Amidst historically high inflation, home health providers saw a meager 0.7% payment increase in 2023, with CMS proposing a substantial -7.85% adjustment to home health payments, already implementing half of it (-3.925%) in 2023.