Volume 2, Number 5 — February 1, 2010
336 days until the first Baby Boomer applies for Medicare
Dear Home Care Colleague,
I want to emphasize one point this week by mentioning it here instead of burying it in a news story. I have been speaking with members of the advisory board of the Home Health Financial Managers Association and have learned of a crisis for Medicare providers.
When cost reports directly impacted your payments, you took the time to make sure they were perfect in every detail. Since the arrival of PPS, many of you have paid less attention to them. However, MedPAC and Congress still use them to set your future payment rates. Inaccuracy may not hurt you today but hurts all in the long run. HHFMA
is urging everyone to produce accurate cost reports, for the good of all.
Think of it like this. You live in a town with over-the-top law enforcement. Every time you drop a piece of
trash on the street, you get a ticket and a $100 fine. Obviously, there is no litter problem in this town. Then the law changes. The city stops giving tickets, hires a litter patrol and raises everyone’s taxes at the end of the year to pay for it. Seeing no immediate consequences, some people start dropping their trash wherever they are. At the end of the year, property taxes double for litterers and good citizens alike. How would your behavior change the following year?
Your Editor,
Tim Rowan
