{"id":22781,"date":"2026-06-10T04:18:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/gao-uses-home-health-as-benchmark-to-question-medicare-hospice-payments-home-health-care-news\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T04:18:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T04:18:26","slug":"gao-uses-home-health-as-benchmark-to-question-medicare-hospice-payments-home-health-care-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/gao-uses-home-health-as-benchmark-to-question-medicare-hospice-payments-home-health-care-news\/","title":{"rendered":"GAO Uses Home Health As Benchmark To Question Medicare Hospice Payments &#8211; Home Health Care News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is proposing that Congress consider changes to the way Medicare pays for hospice routine home care based on a comparison of payment mechanisms between home health and hospice \u2013 though some industry groups caution that the GAO\u2019s recommendation oversimplifies key differences between hospice and home health. <br \/>GAO said Medicare could have saved about $7.6 billion if hospice routine home care from 2022 through 2024 had been reimbursed using adjusted home health per-visit rates rather than hospice\u2019s current per-day payment system, according to a GAO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/products\/gao-26-107585\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report<\/a> released Tuesday.\u00a0<br \/>The report found that Medicare paid about $16.7 billion for hospice routine home careamong the beneficiaries included in its analysis, compared with an estimated $9.1 billion under a home health-style per-visit payment system.<br \/>GAO found that &#8220;low-visit&#8221; hospices received substantially higher effective payments per visit than high-visit hospices under the current payment structure. \u201cLow visit\u201d hospices are concentrated in known high-fraud areas, according to the National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance). The Alliance recommended that hospice reform should focus first on fighting fraudulent activity, which it said would result in greater savings than those outlined by the GAO.\u00a0<br \/>The Alliance also contended that hospice is a comprehensive benefit and requires a different payment approach. <br \/>\u201cThe GAO report also fails to recognize the distinct differences between the home health and hospice benefit structures, regulatory requirements, and skillsets needed to deliver care,\u201d the Alliance\u2019s statement read. \u201cThe hospice daily payment rate is a deliberate design that reflects the nature of hospice care. Unlike home health, hospice is a holistic, comprehensive benefit that includes all services needed for the palliation and management of a patient\u2019s terminal condition.\u201d<br \/>While the Alliance questioned the GAO\u2019s comparison of hospice to home health, Mollie Gurian, vice president of policy and government affairs for LeadingAge, said that the comparison could be a helpful tool. <br \/>\u201cTheir attempt to look at a per-visit [payment by] starting with home health, and then trying to add in some of the things that home health doesn&#8217;t cover, is probably going to be a helpful starting point for us to make it less theoretical,\u201d Gurian told Home Health Care News\u2019 sister publication, Hospice News.<br \/>Gurian said that the GAO did not attempt to compare the entire home health payment system to the entire hospice payment system, and made adjustments to its model to attempt to make it a more \u201capples to apples\u201d comparison.\u00a0<br \/>LeadingAge members are likely to find flaws in the comparison, Gurian said, and are likely to respond to the recommendation by attesting that home health payments themselves are insufficient. The report could prompt additional questions about the home health rate, such as if travel time is appropriately accounted for. <br \/><em>Jim Parker, Senior Editor of Hospice News, contributed reporting to this article. <\/em><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/homehealthcarenews.com\/company\/leadingage\/\" rel=\"tag\">LeadingAge<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/homehealthcarenews.com\/company\/the-national-alliance-for-care-at-home\/\" rel=\"tag\">The National Alliance for Care at Home<\/a><br \/>Morgan Gonzales is an award-winning reporter and associate editor of Home Health Care News. She received her bachelor&#8217;s degree from the University of South Carolina and her master&#8217;s from the University of Georgia. Her work has appeared in Behavioral Health Business, KFF Health News, Dallas Morning News and U.S. News and World Report. When not reporting, Morgan is usually on a trail, doing yoga, or cuddling with her cats, Ellen and Ocho.<br \/>  \t\t<span>Key Insights<\/span>  \t<br \/>  \t\t<span>Key Insights<\/span>  \t<br \/>  \t\t<span>Exclusive Report<\/span>  \t<br \/>  \t\t<span>Key Insights<\/span>  \t<br \/>Home Health Care News (HHCN) is the leading source for news and information covering the home health industry. HHCN is part of the <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wtwhmedia.com\/life-sciences-healthcare\/\" target=\"_blank\">WTWH Healthcare Network<\/a>.<br \/>\u00a9 Home Health Care News <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n  document.write(new Date().getFullYear());\n<\/script>. All rights reserved.<br \/>Please provide your email address to access this download.<\/p>\n<p>By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. <a style=\"color:#ffffff;\" href=\"#\" id=\"fom\">More Information<\/a> <button id=\"pea_cook_btn\" class=\"pea_cook_btn\">Accept<\/button><br \/>The cookie settings on this website are set to &#8220;allow cookies&#8221; to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click &#8220;Accept&#8221; below then you are consenting to this. For more information, see our <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/homehealthcarenews.com\/cookie-policy\/\">cookie policy<\/a><br \/><a style=\"color:#ffffff;\" href=\"#\" id=\"pea_close\">Close<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMisAFBVV95cUxOdkpkTmJweUFMWW1BNW5vSjBEVmIwUW9scUktR0tlcWhGRFY4bFZ5RzJEazdmUDNqeV9CU3RENFl6OHBjVHhIYkRZTDFtWVZPQmNzSWJzajlxcGFIaFJrbWZRWkJaTENSZFh6MmkxdVYtQmlPdjdnNlJuNjBLRF9GTHdQMTR6dHpKbWlNSmxZU08zYnVfMjF2ZVplYlFqVWRoSVZmQkNtalg3NUExZWVORg?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is proposing that Congress consider changes to the way Medicare pays for hospice routine home care based on a comparison of payment mechanisms between home health and hospice \u2013 though some industry groups caution that the GAO\u2019s recommendation oversimplifies key differences between hospice and home health. GAO said Medicare could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}