Bond proposes plan to assist home health care providers

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Home health care needs a little help. That's the position of U.S. Sen. Kit Bond, who visited a Springfield home health care agency to discuss changes in the industry.

Bond visited Oxford Health Care Sept. 2 and met with officials there to discuss what the Missouri Republican has called a "home health care crisis," brought on by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997.

"Unfortunately, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, combined with the Clinton administration's mistakes, has created a fatally flawed and punitive system that is putting thousands of quality home health providers out of business," Bond said in a release from his office.

Chuck Goforth, president of Oxford, a division of Cox Health Systems, met with the senator, who has introduced a bill in Congress (Senate Bill 1310) designed to address some of the problems home health care providers say they are facing. Goforth said that health care faces changes across the board, but home health was the first to suffer.

"They've reduced how much care we can provide for each patient, and I would say we've seen as many as one-third of the agencies in Missouri go out of business in the past year," Goforth said.

Smaller, independent home health agencies have been hardest hit, Goforth said, largely owing to a new system of reimbursement by Medicare.

"The new payment system has made it even harder on the agencies, even those who have tried to maintain their efficiency," Goforth said.

Other changes include reduction in services home health agencies can provide.

"Unless they have another reason to be there, a home health care agent can't just go and draw blood for a blind diabetic patient, for example. That's one of the changes that has been hardest on everyone in this business," Goforth said.

Al Lovitz, divisional vice president of operations for Balanced Care Corporation, said agencies such as his have faced "havoc with our reimbursement system." Balanced Care maintains skilled, assisted living and independent living centers in the area, and also has its own home health care and hospice organization.

"They (Medicare) say how much you can charge and how much they will reimburse you, so you don't have much choice on those things," Lovitz said.

Lovitz added that the changes that could be made to the system are not going to be dramatic at this point.

"I respect what Bond and others are trying to do, but ultimately, it is going to be up to us in our industry to weather these changes. We're going to have to find a way to provide quality care in an industry where the reimbursement is shrinking. It will have to be the industry that comes to grips with this," Lovitz said.

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