The Situation Report | September 23, 2024
HCA and its CHHA member special workgroup has been meeting and working intensively on critical CHHA policy and advocacy steps to support agencies’ in their mission to meet their communities’ home health needs.
The workgroup has been focusing on both state and federal home health priority issues. To date, these have included multi-tiered efforts by HCA and workgroup members to halt the US Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) proposed 2025 cuts to Medicare home health payment under the Patient Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), and efforts to pass and fund HCA’s proposed budget initiatives for supplement state aide to meet community home health needs. Workgroup members are generating and sharing data on the impact of the current home health finance and workforce landscape on patient access, agency operations, and broadly on the functioning of their community’s health system.
The workgroup’s Federal PDGM advocacy met with success on one of its elements this past Friday, where HCA members and HCA lobbyists secured signatures from nearly all of NY’s Congressional Delegation on a co-signed letter to President Biden, and CMS and Office of Management and Budget leadership calling for a halt to and reexamination of CMS’s proposed PDGM cuts to home health. See related SR article here.
On the state level, HCA and the workgroup have been refining a one-page document outlining our proposal for supplemental state aid to home health to meet community need. This HCA document should be available for member circulation and use imminently. HCA will follow with direction to the membership on utilization of this document for outreach to and education of your state legislative members about this state aide proposal, your home health agencies’ needs, and the importance to legislators’ constituents. During the past two legislative sessions, HCA has been successful in getting the proposal language introduced in the Legislature, as well as in getting either the Senate or Assembly to introduce the funding for it. In these two years, the Senate and Assembly have each alternately proposed funding. The goal must be to gain the simultaneous support of the Executive and both the Senate and Assembly to include this program and the funds in the 2025 budget.
Currently, HCA member CHHAs from across NYS are serving on the workgroup, which is meeting every other Tuesday. If your agency is not currently serving, and would like to, please email info@hcanys.org under subject heading HCA CHHA Workgroup, and a member of the HCA team will be in touch to welcome you as a participant! Every HCA CHHA needs to be part of this effort, whether you are a member of this workgroup, or stepping up to help educate policymakers about home health agencies and their patient and community needs.
An easy way to start? Complete the annual State of the Industry survey!
HCA is calling on every CHHA, LHCSA, hospice, MLTC/PACE, and CDPAP/FI statewide to participate in the Association’s Annual State of the Industry Survey.
The information gathered from this annual survey will assist us in providing a comprehensive analysis of home and community-based care in New York State. Our analysis brings together data from various sources to present trends and challenges, as well as profiles of CHHAs, LHCSAs, Hospice and Palliative Care, MLTC/PACE and CDPAP/FI.
Your participation in this survey is critical as we use this data and report for our state and federal advocacy for the upcoming legislative session – help us help you!