Positioning hospital-based home care agencies for managed care

Over the next several years, Medicare cost-cutting strategies and changing market forces will decrease home health visits and revenue per visit and will probably eliminate the Medicare overhead allocation for hospital-based home care agencies and freestanding home care facilities. Consequently, home care agency managers need to plan now to make their operations more efficient and more competitive in the future. Managers should improve their collection of data needed for cost-reporting to optimize overhead reimbursement while it is still allowed and to begin lowering costs per visit. Chief financial officers have an important role to play in making hospital-based home care agencies financially successful.