The following recently introduced House and Senate bills could affect long term care providers:
HB 913: Relating to licensing and regulation of certain facilities providing personal care to persons who are elderly or disabled.
HB 914: Relating to reimbursement rates for certain therapy services provided to Medicaid recipients.
HB 909: Relating to the personal needs allowance for certain Medicaid recipients who are residents of long-term care facilities.
SB 337: Relating to coordination of services provided by Medicaid managed care organizations and certain community centers and local mental health or mental retardation authorities.
In other long term care news, CMS announced that it will test bundling payments for long term care providers to determine whether it will lower costs and provide more coordinated care. Over 500 organizations will participate in the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement initiative. An excerpt:
Organizations of providers participating in the initiative will agree to provide CMS a discount from expected payments for the episode of care, and then the provider partners will work together to reduce readmissions, duplicative care, and complications to lower costs through improvement.
Today’s announcement includes the selection of 32 awardees in Model 1, who will begin testing bundled payments for acute care hospital stays as early as April 2013. In the coming weeks, CMS will also announce a second opportunity for providers to participate in Model 1, with an anticipated start date of early 2014.
Another way for long term care providers to interpret this is that the biggest dog in the ACO will determine what you get from the bundled payments.
