CMS releases home health proposed rule

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today released the proposed rule for the home health prospective payment system for calendar year 2016, which, after all policy changes, would reduce home health payments by 1.8% from 2015 payment levels. CMS proposes a 2.9% market-basket update and 0.6 percentage point cut for productivity, as mandated by the Affordable Care Act. It also would apply a 1.72 percentage point cut in each of CY 2016 and 2017 to account for estimated case mix growth from CYs 2012 through 2014 that the agency states was unrelated to increases in patient acuity. The rule also would implement the third year of the four-year phase in of the rebasing of this payment system, as mandated by the ACA; establish a HH value-based purchasing program to begin Jan. 1, 2016 that would apply to all HH agencies in nine randomly selected states; and make modifications to the HH quality reporting program. The rule will be published in the July 10 Federal Register with comments accepted through Sept. 4.