The NAHC Summer backyard advocacy bash is in full swing, even as the temperatures begin to cool, and students make their way back to the classroom. Congress is headed back to Washington, D.C. and getting to work on several pieces of landmark legislation, we are asking you to focus your advocacy efforts on one of our most import key initiatives, The Choose Home Care Act of 2021 S. 2562.
Home care has long been a safe and effective alternative to care in an institutional setting. Reform of Medicare is overdue to provide viable, extended care services at home for patients who otherwise have only one choice, the Skilled Nursing Facility benefit. The COVID-19 pandemic has vividly shown the limitations and risks of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). Beyond the pandemic crisis, extended care at home also makes sense. Nearly 33 percent of patients who go to SNFs have identical frailty scores to those who receive care at home. The main difference in these patients is that they lack access to extended caregiver services and certain other supplemental health care supports.
The Choose Home Care Act of 2021 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.
- Visit the NAHC Legislative Action Center
- TAKE ACTION!
- Then, forward the link to ONE other person and ask them to do the same.
Together, we can ensure the home care and hospice communities have the support, resources, and protections they need to care for the nation’s most vulnerable during the public health emergency and beyond!
