|
|
Why Accurate Cost Reporting Could Be Key To Higher Rates In Home Health Care
Home Health Care News | By Patrick Filbin
Regardless of what the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) decides to do with its home health final payment rule, industry experts believe providers need to drastically improve their cost reporting data.
“CMS seems to think there are too many of us and we’re making too much money,” Robert Markette, an attorney with the law firm Hall, Render, Killian, Heath & Lyman, said during an Axxess panel. “If you look at the data they’re relying upon, we’ve somewhat done that to ourselves with cost reporting. The reason they think we have a 45% profit margin, which is essentially what they’re saying, is because our cost report data is off.”
Prior to the implementation of PPS at the turn of the century, home health providers were accustomed to spending months on cost reports. At the time, providers would have to submit accurate data and were paid based on those cost reports.
Because of that, home health agencies got accustomed to spending a lot of money on those cost reports to make sure they were accurate and thorough.
“What happened with PPS is that CMS came out and said, ‘Well, you still have to submit cost reports, but we’re really not going to look at the data,’” Arlene Maxim, SVP of clinical services with Axxess said on the panel. “Well, they have done something. MedPAC now takes that data from the cost reports and gives that to Congress. Therein lies the problem.”
Over the years, Maxim said she has seen providers cutting corners firsthand when hiring accountants to put together cost reports. As the industry has evolved and demand has risen, those cost reports have taken a back seat to other operational priorities.
Now is the time to change that, she said.
“I believe that’s where our industry has gotten ourselves into a major problem,” Maxim said. “I think we’ve looked at the cost of preparing cost reports and have not looked ahead to what might possibly happen as a result of that. CMS is seeing a huge range of profit margins. I work with a lot of agencies and I know no one who is working at a 45% margin, let alone 5%. That would be generous.”
To make sure CMS is getting as clear of a profit picture from agencies, Maxim said hiring CPAs and other legal and financial experts with experience in the home health space is critical moving forward.
At the same time, Markette believes CMS is too far removed from the actual day-to-day realities of home health and hospice care.
“CMS still views hospice like it’s 1979,” he said. “With a lot of this stuff, they don’t understand that our cost structure today is not the same as it was in 1985. And yet, when we cry poor, they don’t believe us.”
Some of that onus is still on the providers, however.
“We have failed to give them good data,” Markette continued. “They rely on the cost report. When they look at our cost reports, they see an industry whose data shows our costs aren’t real.”
Read Full Article |
|
RSV Vaccine Approved for Use by Pregnant Women to Protect Newborns
KSL.com | By Lois Collins
WASHINGTON — For the first time, there's a vaccine for pregnant women to protect their babies against respiratory syncytial virus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week approved Abrysvo for use at 32 to 36 weeks of gestation.
The vaccine, made by Pfizer, will protect infants from birth to up to 6 months of age from severe lower respiratory disease symptoms because of RSV, the agency said in announcing the approval, though the efficacy wanes to about 69% by 6 months.
"RSV is a common cause of illness in children and infants are among those at highest risk for severe disease, which can lead to hospitalization," said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in the news release. "This approval provides an option for health care providers and pregnant individuals to protect infants from this potentially life-threatening disease."…
Read Full Article |
Clinical Education Survey
The APTA Academy of Education / Clinical Education SIG has developed the following survey to collect information from the physical therapy clinical education community specific to how programs manage and communicate unused offered clinical education slots from clinical education sites and perspectives from clinical education sites specific to unused slots.
Please consider participation in this research study if you actively participate in the clinical education placement process in the following roles:
- Site Coordinator of Clinical Education (SCCE)
- Clinical Instructor (CI)
- Director of Physical Therapy or Rehab Department
- Clinic/Practice Manager
- Clinic/Practice Owner
- Director of Clinical Education/Assistant Director (DCE/ADCE)
The survey will take 10 minutes or less to complete. Please submit by September 10, 2023.
Survey Link: https://smhsgwu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3ZY9ijQg5pNuQho
Should you have any questions please reach out directly to the principal investigator, Marisa Birkmeier, PT, DPT, PCS, DHSc via email at [email protected] or by phone at (202) 994-6348.
*If you do not actively participate in the clinical education placement process, please share this research opportunity with others who fulfill these roles.* |
Study: How Cardio Fitness, Exercise Counteract Cognitive Decline
The University of Texas at Dallas | By Stephen Fontenot
New research from The University of Texas at Dallas’ Center for Vital Longevity (CVL) supports the idea that the brains of older adults who maintain physical fitness by engaging in regular strenuous exercise more closely resemble those of younger adults.
Dr. Chandramallika Basak, associate professor of psychology in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, is the corresponding author of a study published online April 27 and in the June print edition of Neuroscience that describes how strenuous physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness help the brains of older adults compensate for age-related changes by improving their ability to perform complex cognitive tasks.
The results demonstrate the importance of maintaining physical fitness and regular strenuous exercise to prolong neurological health.
“Age is just one marker for cognitive health, and fitness can be a significant modifying factor,” said Basak, who directs the Lifespan Neuroscience and Cognition Lab in the CVL. “The brain activation patterns of high-fit older adults in our study resemble those of the young adults during a complex cognitive task that requires switching attention focus and updating memory rapidly. This suggests that physical fitness can significantly modify age-related changes in the brain.”
The researchers used functional MRI to measure fluctuations in blood oxygen level-dependent signals as the 52 study participants performed tasks involving several varieties of cognitive control. Limited research exists on contributions of physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness to cognitive functions like those tested in the study, including switching, updating and event anticipation, Basak said.
“Our findings suggest that a lifestyle involving moderate to strenuous physical activity may help maintain cognitive processing in the prefrontal cortex of older adults that matches that of younger adults, while cardiorespiratory fitness may preserve neurovascular health of posterior brain regions,” Basak said. “What we mean by strenuous physical activity is a level of physical activity that actually gets your heart rate up and increases your lung capacity.”
Read Full Article |
The Upheaval at America’s Disappearing Nursing Homes, in Charts
The Wall Street Journal | By Jon Kamp, Melanie Evans, and Gretchen Lenth
America’s nursing homes are fading away.
The U.S. has at least 600 fewer nursing homes than it did six years ago, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data. More senior care is happening at home, and the Covid-19 pandemic caused many families to shun nursing homes while draining workers from an already short-staffed industry.
The result? Frail elderly patients are stuck in hospitals, a dangerous place for seniors, waiting for somewhere to go—sometimes for months. Beds are disappearing while the need for senior care is growing. The American population 65 and older is expected to swell from 56 million in 2020 to 81 million by 2040.
Even before the industry started to shrink noticeably, it was effectively contracting. Though fewer people tend to live in counties without nursing homes, those counties tend to have more elderly residents than average. For people who need comprehensive care, closures can mean disruptive moves or ending up far from loved ones.
Data show capacity in the nursing-home industry has lagged behind growth in the ranks of older Americans for many years. By 2018, the decline accelerated as nursing-home beds steadily disappeared.
Read Full Article |
|
|
|
|
<< first < Prev 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Next > last >>
|
|
Page 31 of 108 |
