CMS proposes rule to support home care worker access to benefits

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Friday proposed allowing state Medicaid agencies to make payments to third parties on behalf of certain individual health care practitioners to make it easier for those workers to obtain and retain health insurance, training and other employee benefits. CMS said the rule would apply to individual practitioners for whom Medicaid is their primary source of revenue, many of whom provide home and community-based services, in response to a district court ruling last year that vacated a 2019 final rule prohibiting states from making these types of payments to third parties.