There is a natural tension between the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) and home health and hospice providers. R. Tamara Konetzka, PHD, a member of MedPAC, talked to McKnight's Home Care for a Newsmakers podcast about the role of MedPAC in preserving Medicare. She also discussed her research on Medicaid home- and community-based services and how the community-initiated home health benefit may offer a much-needed substitute for long-term care.
R. Tamara Konetzka, PhD, the Louis Block Professor of Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago, has been studying the intersection of Medicaid home- and community-based services (HCBS) and Medicare. Her research has found that when dual eligibles use Medicaid HCBS they are more likely to use home health versus skilled nursing facilities after hospitalizations. Konetzka also is fascinated by the idea that community-initiated home health serves as a frontier for a long-term care benefit. Other areas of research for Konetzka are Medicare Advantage. She’d like to examine the use of supplemental benefits, but there is not much data available on the use of them. She speculates that the Trump administration will have a hands-off approach to MA and likely will not expand funding for HCBS.
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