Home Health Agencies to See Modest Medicare Pay Boost for 2023

Overall Medicare payments to home health agencies in 2023 will increase by just 0.7%, or $125 million, after the Biden administration finalized a permanent cut of over 3.9%, or $635 million, on the assumption that agencies altered their billing and coding activity to maximize reimbursements in previous years.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had proposed a “permanent behavior assumption adjustment” cut of 7.85%, or $1.3 billion in 2023, but decided to pare its final rate reduction by about 50% in Monday’s final payment rule (RIN 0938-AU77) “as we recognize the potential hardship of implementing the proposed full permanent ...