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How Home Health Agencies Can Adapt To TEAM and HHVBP Models
Home Health Agencies | By Audrie Martin
The landscape of home health care is evolving through the introduction of two key models designed to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs: the expanded Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) model and the Targeted Episode-Based Medicare Access and Payment (TEAM) model.
These initiatives incentivize home health agencies to provide high-quality, coordinated care while addressing the challenges associated with insufficient treatment for chronic health conditions. Ultimately, they aim to create a more efficient health care system for Medicare beneficiaries.
The primary model currently impacting home health providers is the expanded HHVBP model, according to ATI Advisory. This model adjusts Medicare payments based on a home health agency’s (HHA) performance on quality measures compared to their peers, rewarding agencies that deliver high-quality care.
In a fee-for-service health system, Medicare beneficiaries who qualify for home health care often receive inadequate and uncoordinated care for their chronic health conditions, according to ATI Advisory. This situation leads to increased emergency department (ED) visits, hospital admissions or placements in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs).
How the expanded HHVBP model affects HHAs
The expanded HHVBP model aims to improve the quality and efficiency of home health care. It was implemented on Jan. 1, 2022, and includes Medicare-certified HHAs in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. The calendar year 2022 served as a pre-implementation year during which CMS provided HHAs with resources and training. The first full performance year was 2023, and the calendar year 2025 is the first year for payment adjustments based on performance in 2023.
The expanded HHVBP model builds on the success of the original model, which improved total performance scores among home health agencies by an average of 4.6%, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The original model also decreased unnecessary ED visits, improved patient mobility and reduced Medicare spending by $141 million…
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2024 Home Health and Hospice Chartbooks
Research Institute for Home Care
The Research Institute for Home Care's 2024 Home Health Chartbook and brand-new Hospice Chartbook, co-sponsored by the National Alliance for Care at Home, are now available for free download online.
Check out the home health data here
https://researchinstituteforhomecare.org/home-health-chartbook/
Check out the hospice data here
https://researchinstituteforhomecare.org/hospice-chartbook/ |
2025 Axxess Industry Trends Report
What trends are currently shaping the care at home industry? Discover these key insights in the 2025 Axxess Industry Trends Report, a comprehensive guide that unveils the trends shaping the future of care at home. This report is your gateway to understanding industry priorities and how they will evolve in the coming years.
This comprehensive report examines industry priorities, including how artificial intelligence is redefining care delivery, along with emerging technologies, workforce strategies and trends set to shape the industry through 2030.
Download Report |
OSHA Terminates COVID-19 Rule
Alliance Daily
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced the termination of the Occupational Exposure to COVID-19 in Healthcare Settings Final rule.
On June 21, 2021, OSHA adopted a Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard (Healthcare ETS) protecting workers from COVID-19 in settings where they provide healthcare or healthcare support services. The ETS expired on December 21, 2021, however, at that time OSHA announced that it intends to continue to work expeditiously to issue final standards that will protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 hazards.
OSHA submitted a draft final COVID– 19 rule to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on December 7, 2022. However, on April 10, 2023, President Biden terminated the national emergency related to the COVID–19 pandemic.
In keeping with OSHA’s intent to develop broader infection disease standards to protect healthcare workers, OSHA developed a proposed rule that builds on the COVID-19 standards. The Infectious Diseases proposed rule cleared OMB on January 14, 2025. |
RFK Jr. Faces Mounting Bipartisan Criticism
The Hill | By Nathaniel Weixel
Pressure is mounting on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as critics squeeze senators from both sides of the aisle to oppose President Trump’s pick to be the nation’s top health official.
Kennedy’s bipartisan opponents, including liberal advocates and an organization founded by former Vice President Pence, argue the nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services secretary isn’t fit to serve.
Liberals point to Kennedy’s longtime advocacy against vaccines and his role as the founder of the prominent anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense.
Democratic-aligned group Protect Our Care is spending roughly $1 million on a campaign to highlight how Kennedy could endanger the nation’s health system, running television and digital ads about his record, releasing reports using Kennedy’s own words, and holding events in the districts of key lawmakers.
In a likely preview of what Kennedy will face from Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) last week pressed him in a letter to answer 175 questions on a range of topics including vaccines, his shifting positions on reproductive rights, his pledge to gut the National Institutes of Health, drug pricing and the Affordable Care Act, among many others.
“Given your dangerous views on vaccine safety and public health, including your baseless opposition to vaccines, and your inconsistent statements in important policy areas like reproductive rights access, I have serious concerns regarding your ability to oversee the Department,” Warren wrote.
In many cases, Warren quoted Kennedy directly and asked him to explain his comments, such as when he wrote in his 2023 book about vaccines that “[t]here is virtually no science assessing the overall health effects of the vaccination schedule or its component vaccines.” …
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