The Home Health Care Wire
Your source for CareVoyant and industry news. June 01, 2022
Navigating the challenges of Consumer Directed Services in Home Health Care
Consumer Directed Services (CDS) are home healthcare services offered by Medicaid or Medicaid waiver programs where the consumer (Patient) can hire the caregiver and coordinate the services authorized.
Medicaid or Medicaid Waiver programs authorize Consumer Directed Services with limits on the number of hours of services provided per day or per month. These limits add another layer of challenge to the agencies. They have to limit the services provided under authorized hours even though they do not have complete control over the hiring of caregivers and managing their services.
When services go over authorized hours, the agencies face the uncomfortable task of telling the caregivers that they may not get paid for the services provided over authorized hours.
An effective software platform should have the functions and features to help agencies manage the challenges posed by Consumer Directed Services.
Nurses providing Private Duty Nursing care work in longer shifts providing continuous care for the same patient. They need to collect and document Vitals and Measurements (Vent Settings, Trach Settings, Cough Logs, Seizure Logs, etc.) and administer medications and treatments multiple times during the shift. Providing continuous care in a longer shift creates unique documentation challenges for nurses and Private Duty Home Care agencies.
A software platform should accommodate the challenges of Continuous Care Documentation for Private Duty Nursing Home Care Agencies.
Key Performance Indicators for Home Care Agencies
Managing Home Care Agencies is a massive challenge in today's environment of staffing shortages, increased regulatory demands, and declining reimbursement. Improving the financial performance and operational efficiency of home care agencies must begin with an approach to managing by the numbers. Agencies must define benchmarks across clinical, financial, and administrative facets using clearly defined Key Performance Indicators and the acceptable level of performance.
Home Healthcare Industry News
CMS Releases Analysis on 2022 Medicare Part B Premium Reexamination
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a report that recommends cost savings from lower-than-expected Medicare Part B spending be passed along to people with Medicare Part B coverage in the calculation of the 2023 Part B premium. Earlier this year, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra instructed CMS to reassess the 2022 Part B premium amount in response to a price reduction for Aduhelm™, a monoclonal antibody directed against amyloid for use in treating Alzheimer’s disease. Given the information available today, it is expected that the 2023 premium will be lower than 2022. The final determination will be made later this fall.
What is BENES 2.0?
In December 2020, Congress passed the Beneficiary Enrollment Notification and Eligibility Simplification (BENES) Act as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act. The legislation updated Medicare enrollment rules to eliminate the months-long gap in coverage some beneficiaries encounter after they sign up for a new plan. It also included provisions for education around the Medicare enrollment process. The provisions of the BENES Act go into effect Jan. 1, 2023.
ABOUT CAREVOYANT
CareVoyant is a leading provider of cloud-based integrated enterprise-scale home health care software that can support all home-based services under ONE Software, ONE Patient, and ONE Employee, making it a Single System of Record. We support all home care lines of service, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy.
CareVoyant functions – Intake, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, electronic visit verification, eMAR/eTAR, Financial, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, and bring operational efficiency.
For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.