Home care associations plan to meet this week to plot strategy
By MATTHEW HAY
HHBR Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON The good news for home care providers is that the wave of home care bills already introduced in Congress this year is evidence that lawmakers know the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) badly damaged the home care industry. The bad news is that there is no single bill the industry can throw its support behind, which was what the five national home care associations hoped to develop when they met earlier this year and agreed on six key principles. But representatives from many of these groups say that finding a single key member of Congress to introduce the precise bill they were hoping for proved impossible.
The five groups, the National Association for Home Care (Washington), the Home Health Services and Staffing Association (Washington), the Home Care Association of America (Jacksonville, FL), the American Federation of Home Care Providers (Washington), and the Visiting Nurses Association of America (Boston), plan to meet again this week to plot strategy and coordinate efforts.
But even though the precise bill the five groups were hoping for failed to materialize, all sides agree that the coalition has managed to avoid the internal divisions that plagued their efforts to bring about changes in the BBA last year. Moreover, representatives from several of these groups stated early on that the primary objectives were the elimination of the 15% across-the-board cut and an outlier provision for medically complex patients.
Nearly every major bill introduced so far includes elimination of the 15% reduction, including a bill introduced in the House last week by Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and another just before the July Fourth recess that was introduced by Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Rick Lazio (R-NY).
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