GAO Federal: Advocacy Spares BAYADA’s Home Health Practice $11 million Annually

GAO’s 2019 Federal Affairs Team with Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)
  • BAYADA GAO’s federal affairs team supported both the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (PQHH) and the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC) in lobbying both Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to reduce the reimbursement cut mandated by the Patient Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) from 8.36% to 4.06%.  This reduction in the rate cut, effective January 1, 2020, saves BAYADA more than $11 million in annual gross revenues.  While the industry was successful in having the reimbursement cut reduced by more than 50%, it still faces further cuts based on behavioral assumptions.  This partnership of BAYADA and national associations will continue into 2020 with the goal to eliminate any further cuts made based on assumed behaviors and limiting future reimbursement cuts and increases to 2%.  
  • BAYADA led the Partnership for Quality Home Health’s (PQHH) first annual Home Visit Program by providing specific guidelines so that the industry continues to be consistent in its efforts to educate legislators on the value of home health.  Each quarter BAYADA was represented in several tactics (office visits locally or in Washington D.C., action alerts, town halls, comment submissions) that essentially led to the reduced reimbursement cut, and led a federal home visit in Florida with Congressman Vern Buchanan (R-FL). BAYADA continues to be recognized for our grassroots efforts on a national level within the industry.
  • GAO, along with the Hospice Action Network (HAN), lobbied MedPAC and successfully reversed MedPAC’s recommendation to cut hospice reimbursement in 2020 by 2%, saving BAYADA a potential revenue loss of nearly $1.5 million in 2020.