Tag: Medicare

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA - JUNE 8, 2019: First ever Medicare for All rally led by Bernie Sanders held in The Loop of Chicago. Crowd holds up a sign that says "Medicare for All Saves Lives".

Medicare for the Poor

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By David Orentlicher

While Medicare-for-All has proved controversial, every Democratic presidential candidate should embrace one of its key elements—folding the Medicaid program into the Medicare program. That would be much better for patients, doctors, and hospitals. It also would be much better for public school children.

Medicare would be a much better program for patients, doctors, and hospitals in several ways. Lower-income families suffer because Medicaid is a federal-state partnership, and some states have stingier Medicaid programs than do other states. In particular, Florida, Texas, and twelve other states have not signed up for the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, leaving more than two million lower-income Americans uninsured. Under our current Medicaid system, access to health care for the indigent depends where they live. Folding Medicaid into Medicare would give the poor access to health care in every state.

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A data set that looks like America

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By Oliver Kim

May marks the annual Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which recognizes the history and contributions of this diverse population in the United States. Accounting for that diversity though is one of the challenges facing the Asian American-Pacific Islander (AAPI) community: for example, the Library of Congress commemorative website recognizes that AAPI is a “rather broad term” that can include

all of the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island).

Understanding that diversity has huge policy and political implications, particularly in health policy. Read More

CMS Publishes Final Rule Revising and Expanding Conditions for HHA Participation in Medicare and Medicaid

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By Wendy S. Salkin

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized a rule concerning home health agencies on January 9th, “Medicare and Medicaid Program: Conditions of Participation for Home Health Agencies.” The rule has been a long time coming, since the proposed rules were set forth on October 9, 2014. This is the first time that CMS has successfully updated the home health agency (HHA) conditions of participation (CoPs) since 1989.

The aim of the final rule, according to CMS, is to “improve the quality of health care services for Medicare and Medicaid patients and strengthen patients’ rights.” The final rule

revises the conditions of participation (CoPs) that home health agencies (HHAs) must meet in order to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The requirements focus on the care delivered to patients by HHAs, reflect an interdisciplinary view of patient care, allow HHAs greater flexibility in meeting quality care standards, and eliminate unnecessary procedural requirements.

According to CMS,

[t]hese changes are an integral part of [the Agency’s] overall effort to achieve broad-based, measurable improvements in the quality of care furnished through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while at the same time eliminating unnecessary procedural burdens on providers.

As is likely well known to readers, the use of home health services in the United States is widespread. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, as of 2014, there were 12,400 home health agencies in the United States and, during 2013, 4.9 million patients in the United States received and ended care from home healthcare workers. These numbers have since risen, and today in the United States there are nearly 12,600 Medicare and Medicaid-participating home health agencies and more than 5 million patients. Home health care serves a wide range of purposes. The Medicare website touts it as “usually less expensive, more convenient, and just as effective as care you get in a hospital or skilled nursing facility (SNF).” In addition to serving the aims of treating illness or injury, according to Medicare home health care “helps [patients] get better, regain [their] independence, and become as self-sufficient as possible.” Some examples of what home health care providers do with and for patients, upon doctor’s orders, include: wound care, patient and caregiver education, intravenous or nutrition therapy, injections, monitoring patient health condition, monitoring patient drug and treatment use, teaching patients how to care for themselves, and coordinating care between the patient, their doctor, and any other caregivers. Read More

CMS Prohibits Arbitration Clauses in Long-Term Care Facility Contracts

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By Wendy S. Salkin

On Wednesday, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS)—an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—released a final rule that “will revise the requirements that Long-Term Care facilities [LTCs] must meet to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs” (1). (Almost all LTCs receive funds from Medicare or Medicaid.) This is the first time that these requirements have been “comprehensively reviewed and updated since 1991” (6)—that is, in the past 25 years. One of the most striking changes to the regulation is found in §483.65, where CMS “require[es] that facilities must not enter into an agreement for binding arbitration with a resident or their representative until after a dispute arises between the parties” (12) which means that CMS is “prohibiting the use of pre-dispute binding arbitration agreements” (12). Among the reasons provided by CMS for this change is a recognition of the notable power differential between LTCs and their residents:

There is a significant differential in bargaining power between LTC facility residents and LTC facilities. LTC agreements are often made when the would-be resident is physically and possibly mentally impaired, and is encountering such a facility for the first time. In many cases, geographic and financial restrictions severely limit the choices available to a LTC resident and his/her family. LTC facilities are also, in many cases, the resident’s residence. These facilities not only provide skilled nursing care, but also everything else a resident needs. Many of these residents may reside there for a prolonged period of time, some for the rest of their lives. Because of the wide array of services provided and the length of time the resident and his/her family may have interactions with the LTC facility, disputes over medical treatment, personal safety, treatment of residents, and quality of services provided are likely to occur. Given the unique circumstances of LTC facilities, we have concluded that it is unconscionable for LTC facilities to demand, as a condition of admission, that residents or their representatives sign a pre-dispute agreement for binding arbitration that covers any type of disputes between the parties for the duration of the resident’s entire stay, which could be for many years. (402-403)

As The New York Times reported, when the rule was first proposed in July 2015, it was “aimed at improving disclosure.” But, this final version of the rule “went a step further than the draft, cutting off funding to facilities that require arbitration clauses as a condition of admission.”

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The Unintended Effect of Medicare on the Law of Torts

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By Alex Stein

If you are familiar with about a thousand medical malpractice decisions and can’t think of an accident that might surprise you, read Stayton v. Delaware Health Corporation, — A.3d —- 2015 WL 3654325 (Del. 2015). Another reason for reading this new decision of the Delaware Supreme Court is that it has delivered an important precedent: the Court decided that the collateral source rule does not cover medical costs written off by Medicare. Read More

Doc Fix Likely to Delay Review of Inpatient Hospital Admissions

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Every year, in order to prevent a statutorily-triggered decrease in physician reimbursements under Medicare, Congress must adjust the statutorily-prescribed fee schedule.  This is known as the “doc fix.”  The American Medical Association, for what it is worth, has lobbied for a permanent doc fix, but that has not happened yet.

This year’s automatic pay cut was going to be 24%, and for a moment a temporary fix was in doubt because of bipartisan support for a permanent fix.  But thanks to some procedural maneuvering yesterday, it looks like a temporary doc fix is through the house, at least.  (See coverage in Politico here and Washington Post here.  And just for fun, see a show about getting things through the house with procedural maneuvering here.)

In addition to the doc fix, a provision included in the House bill would forbid the Department of Health and Human Services from conducting post-payment review through Recovery Audit Contractors of inpatient hospital admission until March 31, 2015.  This will stop for at least a year a review program that, in its last full year of operation, returned to the Medicare trust fund (and took away from hospitals) billions of dollars.  (See commentary condemning the delay here and commentary criticizing the Recovery Audit Contractor program here.) It’s a notable development and if passed will kick the can down the road a short ways for Medicare to decide how it wants to handle utilization review in this area.

The DOMA Petition You Should Be Following

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By Nicole Huberfeld

You may be thinking “DOMA? Hello, this is HEALTH LAW.”  Please stick with me for a moment.  The Supreme Court appears to be collecting petitions for certiorari regarding the Defense of Marriage Act, likely to determine which circuit’s decision is the best vehicle for considering the constitutionality of this federal law.  One such petition results from the First Circuit’s decision in Massachusetts v. Department of Health and Human Services/Hara v. Office of Personnel Management, which held that section 3 of DOMA violated the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.  The court reasoned that promoting marriage is not rationally related to denying federal benefits to same-sex couples, thereby avoiding the creation of a new category of suspect class.  The twist is that the state of Massachusetts also claims that section 3 of DOMA, which denies federal economic benefits to same-sex couples, exceeds Congress’s Spending Clause authority and infringes the state’s 10th Amendment rights.  While the First Circuit did not agree with the state on these points, it did incorporate federalism concerns into its Equal Protection Clause analysis by noting that states traditionally have defined marriage, therefore the federal government cannot protect the state of Massachusetts from its own definition of marriage by promoting heterosexual marriage. Read More