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House Ways and Means subcommittee examines access to post-acute care, telehealth hospice recertification bill
Summary
A House Ways and Means subcommittee opened a hearing focused on access to post-acute care for Medicare beneficiaries, citing data on utilization and improvements and noting recent bipartisan legislation to allow hospice recertification by telehealth.
The House Ways and Means subcommittee opened a hearing to examine access to post-acute care for Medicare beneficiaries and to consider recent bipartisan legislation that would permit hospice recertification by telehealth.
The issue matters because a sizeable share of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries rely on post-acute services on discharge, and policymakers say better access can reduce readmissions and improve outcomes. "Our Medicare program has changed over the past decade, and we are here to make sure that patients have sufficient access to care," the Subcommittee Chair (unnamed) said at the start of the session.
During opening remarks the Subcommittee Chair (unnamed) cited several statistics and examples to frame the discussion: that roughly 40 percent of Medicare beneficiaries who are hospitalized use post-acute care services after their hospital stay; that patients discharged to nursing homes have lower death and hospital-readmission rates than those in less-specialized settings; and that 58 percent of home health patients report improvements in their ability to perform daily activities. The chair also highlighted growing use of telehealth as an innovation some providers are using to deliver post-acute care at home.
The chair noted legislation introduced two weeks earlier by Congresswoman Carol Miller, the bipartisan Hospice Recertification Flexibility Act, which would allow hospice providers to use telehealth to recertify a patient's hospice stay remotely. "This important legislation will allow hospice providers to use telehealth to recertify their hospice stay from the comfort of their home," the Subcommittee Chair (unnamed) said. The chair also commended Representative Panetta and Representative Van Van Dine for working together on oversight related to hospice providers.
No formal votes or motions were recorded in the provided transcript excerpt; the remarks served to introduce witnesses and set the scope of the hearing. The chair emphasized two goals for the session: ensuring timely access to needed services and conducting oversight to verify those services are delivered appropriately.
The hearing proceeded to receive testimony from invited witnesses (not transcribed in the provided excerpt). The subcommittee framed its oversight around Medicare access, post-acute outcomes, telehealth expansion in post-acute settings, and hospice recertification flexibility. Further testimony and any formal actions were not included in the excerpt provided.
