Cultivating Change

Over the summer months, the right combination of sunshine, rain and nutrients produces great grass. It’s pretty simple, actually.

On the political and policy fronts, the same holds true. Only the right combination of people, messages and actions — working together — produce great results.

Right now, every one of us in the home care community must engage our potent green thumbs — to encourage and cultivate grassroots and grasstops networks alike to produce results on several pressing issues. Our priorities are:

• To protect beneficiaries and small providers by lining up co-sponsors for H.R. 3559, the Hobson-Tanner bill. This bill, introduced in late July by Reps. David Hobson, R-Ohio, and John Tanner, D-Tenn., would solve many of the problems with the restrictive contracting (“competitive bidding”) provisions of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Among other things, the bill aims to protect small providers, require that quality standards are in place before the bidding program begins and exempt small rural areas from the program. We need to produce strong, broad bipartisan support in the House to create momentum for this bill, which would go a long way toward taking the sting out of the restrictive contracting scheduled to begin in 10 of the statistically largest metropolitan areas in 2007.
• To preserve access to home inhalation drug therapy by preventing dispensing fee cuts. The benchmark Muse & Assoc. study in 2004 found that the cost of providing inhalation drug therapy is more than $68 per monthly supply — yet CMS set the 2005 dispensing fee at only $57. The proposed 2006 physician fee schedule suggests that CMS is considering an additional cut to the fee. Concerned providers have been asking their members of Congress to urge CMS to increase the dispensing fee. The deadline for comment is the end of September.
• And always — to remind Congress continually about the value of home care.

Request a meeting with your U.S. representative or senator to tell the home care story. Your voice is powerful. Use it. Our message to trumpet again and again is that home care is overwhelmingly preferred by patients, is cost-effective and is clinically proven. Home care is a large part of the solution to the looming crises in both Medicare and Medicaid.

A recent survey of medical and health care literature on the cost-effectiveness and value of home care, talking points, and a 10-step “how-to” guide are available on AAHomecare’s Web site at www.aahomecare.org. Check it out.

And lastly, get involved and stay involved. Attend town hall meetings, meet with other home care providers, write letters to your newspaper and to members of Congress about the benefits of home care, and always, always keep abreast of health care policy and home care issues.

It’s our story to tell, and our future depends on how the story is told.

Home care’s grassroots and grasstops networks are actively engaged in pursuing each one of these priorities. But we need your help and your voices. Much of our work sits at the “grasstops” level — and it is you who are the roots that keep us strong and help to push policy forward.

State association leaders do their part through their own leadership and members to mobilize home care providers in their states and regions. And the voices of individual providers are extremely important as well, as they represent our broader constituencies — the employees, taxpayers, voters and patients and their families who round out the home care “family.”

Ultimate grassroots strength, success and sustainability for AAHomecare is when consumers, voters and patients and their families truly understand why it’s important to keep the nation’s home care infrastructure healthy. Their stories make the strongest case for home care — and getting the message to them through your organization’s network and through the media will keep the green grass of home care growing strong.

Kay Cox is president and CEO of the American Association for Homecare, Alexandria, Va. For more information about AAHomecare, visit www.aahomecare.org, or call 703/836-6263.