HCA this week voiced support for a proposal to add non-skilled in-home supports as a supplemental benefit under Medicare Advantage (MA).
Our comments — to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — also include recommendations for implementation of this potentially transformative change. HCA’s comments can be downloaded here.
CMS recently announced the proposal in a notice to MA plans on 2019 payment changes, saying that it intends to expand the scope of the “primarily health related supplemental benefit standard.” Such an expansion would cover services or items that “diagnose, prevent, or treat an illness or injury, compensate for physical impairments, act to ameliorate the functional/psychological impact of injuries or health conditions, or reduce avoidable emergency and health care utilization.”