Final Home Health PPS Rules & Rates For 2017 - 11/7/2016

We just returned from a 10-day cruise from New York to Ft Lauderdale.  Our trip started with 2 nights in New York which included seeing the Broadway Play “Beautiful” (Story of Carol King), visit to Ground Zero, trip to the top of Freedom Tower (Amazing), and Harbor Cruise to see the Statue of Liberty and other sites.  The cruise had stops in St. Martin, Antigua, and Bonaire.  While we were away many things happened including the release of the Final Home Health PPS Rules & Rates for 2017.

The final rules reduced the cut in home health payments from $180 million to $130 million. 

The national standard 60-day episode rate is the basis for all home health payments.  Home Health agency patients living in rural areas have a 3 percent add-on which is scheduled to expire on January 1, 2018.  Home health agencies that do not submit quality data will have the above rates reduced by an additional 2 percent.

2017 National Urban Agency Rate $2,989.97

2017 National Urban Agency Rates (not submitting quality data) $2,931.63

2017 National Rural Agency Rate $3,079.67

2017 National Rural Agency Rate (not submitting quality data) $3,019.58

Individual home health agency rates will be adjusted by geographic location of the patient’s residence.  Individual episode rates will be adjusted by case-mix.

Other items changed in the final rule are LUPA Rates, Medical Supply Rates, Case-Mix Weights, HHVBP Model, and Outlier program. This is the first of several email alerts that will be published this week.

To view the rule please go to:

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-11-03/pdf/2016-26290.pdf