IHCCA Project HELP October 7th 2021 SAVE the DATE!
Special Guests: Directors of Government Affairs for National Association for Home Care and Hospice: (NAHC)
Legislative update from Calvin McDaniel who will be covering Home Care and Home Health and Davis Baird who will cover the hospice and palliative care issue. They were glad to have Idaho association to engage and collaborate on advocacy efforts.
Calvin McDaniel, Director of Government Affairs, NAHC
Calvin McDaniel has spent the past four years in government affairs for the National Association for Home Care and hospice and manages legislative strategies, educates Members of Congress on home care and hospice priorities, and communicates impactful legislation to NAHC members. Prior to NAHC Calvin specialized in health policy for a member of the influential House Ways and Means Committee on Capitol Hill.
Davis Baird, Director of Government Affairs for Hospice, NAHC
Davis comes to us from the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care, where he was the Policy and Advocacy Manager. Prior to that, he worked at the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging and Altarum’s Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness.
Talking points will be on:
- Choose Home Care Act: of 2021, (S. 2562)
The Choose Home Care Act of 2021, S. 2562 is a cost-effective and patient preferred home-based extended care benefit as a supplement to the existing home health benefit that supports patients to leave the hospital and recover at home with a mix of expanded skilled nursing, therapy, personal care, telehealth services and more. In this way, eligible patients can choose to recover at home in a safe home environment with appropriate and sufficient care tailored to meet their individual needs and reduced Medicare spending.
- Better Care Better Jobs Act: (S. 2210/H.R. 4131)
Better Care Better Jobs Act. This important legislation would be a key investment in the Medicaid program by providing increased access to care in the setting patients overwhelmingly prefer, their home, while also growing the care-giving workforce.
This legislation would help address these problems and others by requiring coverage for personal care services; expand supports for family caregivers; adopt programs that help people navigate enrollment and eligibility; expand access to behavioral health care; improve coordination with housing, transportation, and employment supports; and develop or improve programs to allow working people with disabilities to access HCBS.
In addition, the bill would strengthen and expand the HCBS workforce by addressing HCBS payment rates to promote recruitment and retention of direct care workers; regularly updating HCBS payment rates with public input; passing rate increases through to direct care workers to increase wages; and updating and developing training opportunities for this workforce as well as family caregivers.
RESPONSE from Senator Crapo
“ … the Better Care Better Jobs Act proposes to only provide additional funding to states that are able to meet a series of requirements, many of which may be unattainable or unrealistic. Further, using the process of reconciliation to enact these reforms prevents transparent, thorough consideration. HCBS have a long history of bipartisan support. Efforts to strengthen services, increase the workforce and expand access should be done through a robust dialogue with states, providers and patients to ensure reforms accomplish their intended purpose.”
- The Expanding Access to Palliative Care Act: (S. 2565)
The Expanding Access to Palliative Care Act (S. 2565) would help address the need for new ways to support these kinds of models by directing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) to implement a community-based palliative care (CBPC) demonstration aimed at improving the quality of life and quality of care of people living with serious illness and their families. Informed by CMMI’s exisiting Medicare Care Choices Model (MCCM) that tests concurrent hospice-like services and curative treatments, the new CBPC model called for by S. 2565 would provide an extra layer of interdisciplinary support to some of the sickest and most vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, there is a great unmet need for better and more comprehensive palliative pain and symptom management, care coordination, and caregiver support.
- CONNECT for Health Act (telehealth): of 2021(S.1512/H.R. 2903)
The CONNECT for Health Act of 2021 (S.1512/H.R. 2903) is in response to the pandemic, federal policymakers instituted several legislative and regulatory flexibilities that have facilitated greater access to telehealth services. Included amongst these changes was waiving the geographic restrictions so that Medicare beneficiaries in all areas of the country could receive virtual services and removing the originating site restrictions so that beneficiaries could connect with providers from the comfort and safety of their own home.
Of particular importance to the home-based care community, hospice providers have benefited from the flexibility to use telehealth for the duration of the PHE to conduct the face-to-face (F2F) encounter prior to recertification of eligibility for hospice care. This allowance has helped limit the spread of the virus and addressed concerns around exposure risk that in-home visits may pose to these vulnerable patients and their caregivers. Providing virtual F2F services has worked efficiently and effectively during the pandemic for patients, families, and hospice providers.
It is a bipartisan bill with strong congressional and stakeholder support that would permanently expand the above flexibilities, as well as others. It would give the HHS Secretary the authority to add new services to those allowed to be delivered via telehealth as evidence emerges to support their effectiveness and feasibility. This transformative bill would support home-based care providers’ ability to access more people in their care setting of choice. Request that Congress should make these changes permanent.
If any questions or concerns, please email Kouwehand@terracehealth.com or call 208.369.6793