NAHC Applauds Senators Seeking Home and Hospice Care Inflation Adjustment

Over Three-Quarters of Senate Joins Appeal to Senate Finance Committee


The National Association of Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) today praised 76 members of the U.S. Senate for pledging to support a full market basket inflation adjustment for Medicare home care and hospice services. NAHC said the move would give home care and hospice agencies the inflation adjustment to which they are entitled under law.


Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) initiated the letter supporting the inflation adjustment, directing it to Senate Committee on Finance Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Max Baucus (D-MT).

“Today we thank the 76 Senators who have stood up for aged, infirm and dying Americans by signing this important pledge to help home care and hospice agencies to keep pace with inflation,” said NAHC President Val. J. Halamandaris. “The Bush Administration has indicated its support for a freeze on Medicare spending for home care. Some policymakers may even be tempted to use savings in home care as a means of canceling the five percent cut in program payments to physicians scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2007. Trading home care for physician payments would be a terrible bargain. Home and hospice care deliver better health outcomes, more cost effective treatment, and, most importantly, a greater measure of dignity and quality of life for care recipients.”

The Senate letter says the Bush Administration’s FY 2007 budget would freeze the Medicare home health market basket index for the second straight year and make subsequent reductions in out years, cutting $3.5 billion in home health payments over five years. Cuts in the hospice market basket would reduce payments by $550 million over five years.


“Given home health agencies’ rising transportation costs, the use of new and more costly technology and telehealth, and ever-increasing costs for skilled nurses and therapists, a home health payment freeze in 2007 would place the quality of home health services and home care delivery system itself at significant risk,” the Senate letter notes.


Halamandaris said it makes little sense to cut the very health and home care services most needed by the aged and infirm today.


About NAHC

The National Association for Home Care & Hospice, the industry’s oldest and most respected trade group, represents the interests of nearly 20,000 home care agencies and hospice organizations (including approximately 11,500 Medicare-certified home health agencies) that annually serve nearly nine million Americans as well as home care aide organizations, home care giving staff and their clients. NAHC members believe that quality home care and hospice, humane and cost-effective alternatives to institutionalization, are the right of all Americans. Home care and hospice reinforce and supplement the care provided by family members and friends and encourage maximum independence of thought and functioning as well as the preservation of human dignity. Visit NAHC on the web at www.nahc.org.


Home Health and Hospice services are available at Columbus Community Hospital. For more information about these programs, call 562-3300.

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