NOTABLE & QUOTABLE

“Since Medicare payments typically comprise 35 to 50 percent of a small provider’s revenue, losing the ability to provide competitively bid items for a three-year contract period is essentially a death knell.”
— Pittsburgh home care provider and American Association for Homecare Board member Georgie Blackburn testifying recently before the House Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight. Unless Congress modifies the program, competitive bidding for HME will hurt small providers and “undermine the nation’s home care infrastructure,” Blackburn said.

S. 2181 The Home Health Care Access Protection Act of 2007 would prevent CMS from imposing scheduled administrative cuts to the Medicare home health program. According to the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, unless Congress intervenes to stop the cuts, “fewer people will have access to care, those who do qualify will receive less care, more than 50 percent of all Medicare providers will be paid less than it costs them to provide services, many home health providers will go out of business and overall Medicare costs will increase because patients who had been receiving care at home will be forced to receive their care at five to 10 times the cost in overcrowded hospital emergency rooms or nursing homes.”

34% of U.S. adults aged 20 were obese in 2005-2006. Though obesity rates have leveled off in recent years, only 18 percent were obese in 1980.
Source: CDC

33 Number of HME mergers and acquisitions through the third quarter this year, a 28 percent decline, with uncertain reimbursements the main culprit
Source: The Braff Group

4,500 Number of calories the average American consumes on Thanksgiving Day.
Source: New York Times/Calorie Control Council

0.4% Amount by which health care spending is expected to increase per year through 2050, despite growth in the population age 65 and over
Source: Health Affairs

43 Countries have life expectancies higher than the U.S.
Source: The United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention