Infu-Tech, Humana sign home health agreement
Infu-Tech, Humana sign home health agreement
In January, Infu-Tech joined forces with Humana, Inc., by signing a definitive agreement to provide home health services to Humana Health Plan of Illinois, a wholly owned subsidiary of Humana.
Under the terms of the agreement, Infu-Tech will provide home health services for two years and cover approximately 100,000 Humana members in Southern Cook County and Will County, IL. The contract is a full-risk capitated contract.
Infu-Tech has formed a strategic alliance with two leading hospital home care agencies: Mercy Hospital of Chicago and Little Company of Mary Hospital (Chicago), which will serve as the basis to provide comprehensive home health service for the Humana agreement as well as for additional contracts in the Chicago market.
Through this alliance, Infu-Tech will maintain responsibility for the advanced technology component of home health delivery, which will include infusion therapy. The agencies will maintain primary responsibility for providing home nursing and other basic home health services.
Infu-Tech, based in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, is a leading provider of high-quality, cost- efficient infusion therapy and other medical products and services to patients in their homes, at Infu-Tech ambulatory infusion suites, and at Infu-Tech-credentialed subacute facilities. Infu-Tech is accredited by the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Health Organizations, and the company’s products and services are marketed in 27 states.
ER looks good on TV, but it’s really expensive
Did you know that the bill for treatment in a hospital emergency department is often twice the actual cost?
The next time someone challenges the costs of home health, refer them to the recent New England Journal of Medicine article written by Robert M. Williams, MD, DrPH, of the Univer sity of Michigan, Ann Arbor (N Engl J Med 1996; Mar. 7:642-646). Williams says the bill for treatment in a hospital emergency department is often twice the actual cost.
The markup covers people who don’t pay about half the emergency department visits. The average cost for treating noncritical illnesses, such as a sore throat or an earache, is $62, Williams reports, but patients’ fees average $124.
The actual cost of emergency services for minor problems is "much closer to cost of treatment in a doctor’s office than most people believed," he says.
The belief that treatment in emergency rooms is expensive has led some health care providers to seek ways to keep people out of them. (See pediatric asthma story on p. 16.) But, adds Williams, the emergency department is really the only place some people can go for care.
Olsten changes name
Olsten Kimberly QualityCare, north America’s largest home health care provider, changed its name in January to Olsten Health Services. Olsten, which is based in Melville, NY, and which employs about 650,000 people, provides the following services to more than a half million clients:
• home health care (600 locations nationwide);
• hospital-based home health agency management (200 agencies nationwide);
• skilled nursing;
• infusion therapy for acute and chronic patients;
• network management for managed care organizations, hospitals, and doctors;
• health care staffing for hospitals and companies.
The name reflects Olsten Health Services’ comprehensive home health business, company officials say, as well as being easier to remember.
HCFA issues final rule on electronic reporting
The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) has announced its final rule on electronic cost reporting for skilled-nursing facilities (SNF) and home health agencies (HHAs) in a January edition of the Federal Register. (62 FR 26 [1997]). The rule, effective Feb. 1, 1997, states that most SNFs and HHAs must submit cost reports currently required under Medicare regulations in a standardized electronic format.
The rule covers cost reporting periods ending on or after Feb. 1, 1997.
It allows a delay or waiver of this requirement, according to HCFA, "where implementation would result in financial hardship for a provider. A provider must submit a written request for a waiver or a delay."
According to HCFA’s summary of comments, HHAs and SNFs feared that, like hospitals, few agencies would be granted waivers. HCFA attributes the small number of electronic reporting waivers granted hospitals to the number of petitions. Out of 7,000 hospitals, HCFA says it received only 10 electronic reporting waiver requests from hospitals, but all 10 were granted.
When it proposed the rule in 1995, HCFA said current hospital electronic cost reporting requirements would apply to SNFs and HHAs as well. Hospital cost reports must be electronically transmitted to the intermediary in American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format.
HCFA says electronic cost reporting software will "virtually eliminate computational errors and substantially reduce preparation time. The use of cost reporting software will also save time when the provider discovers that it needs to change individual entries in the cost report."
The agency does not think the final rule will have a significant impact on agencies’ costs because they will not be required to collect additional data. Cost reporting software is available at no cost from HCFA upon request.
HCFA says accuracy has improved since hospitals began submitting cost reports electronically in 1989. The agency also says it has not received any comments from the hospital industry indicating electronic cost reporting is burdensome.
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