Hospice, home care providers march on Washington

Defining the work week and expanding caregiver duties were two of the issues on the table as hundreds of home care and hospice providers came to the nation’s capital for the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) March on Washington March 22 to 25.

The event included issue-specific panels on regulatory and legislative concerns, breakfasts with members of the Senate and House of Representatives and subsequent meetings on Capitol Hill.

NAHC’s current legislative agenda includes:

• Defining full-time employment as a 40-hour work week under the Affordable Care Act,
• Preventing Congress from implementing copayments for home health,
• Extending the Medicare home health rural add-on,
• Authorizing nurse practitioners and physician assistants to sign orders for home healthcare, and
• Expandng the use of telehealth and other technology that helps older adults age in place.

“We can continue to waste precious resources on institutional care or we can embrace proven solutions—namely home care and hospice—to fill the healthcare needs of our growing senior population,” NAHC President Val J. Halamandaris said in a statement. “Not only is home care the right way to save Medicare billions, it is what our seniors need to deal with their increasing and complicated health conditions.”

Lois Bowers

Lois A. Bowers was senior editor of I Advance Senior Care / Long-Term Living from 2013-2015.