Medicare Home Health Services

GAO assessed various Medicare claims to determine the reasonableness and medical necessity of skilled nursing care and therapy, the need for home health aide services, and compliance with the homebound and other requirements of the Medicare program. Aide services provide for the personal care of the beneficiary and represent about one-third of all visits provided under the program. Because family and friends provide similar services, GAO visited 150 beneficiaries in their homes to determine if the use of home health aides was supplanting the support provided by family and friends.

In a review of a sample of beneficiary medical files at 37 home health agencies, GAO found that 27 percent of the home health visits were not covered under the program or were questionable. Two major reasons were that beneficiaries were not homebound and the services provided were not reasonable or medically necessary. GAO noted that other studies also disclosed similar results. GAO found that Medicare contractors or intermediaries deny few claims for payment because they receive from home health agencies little information on which to base a judgment. GAO found the homebound requirement of the program to be especially difficult to administer because of a lack of clear criteria as to the ambulatory status of the beneficiaries and the nature and frequency of absences from home. For 28 percent of the cases, GAO was of the opinion that the beneficiary was capable of self care or family or friends were willing and able to provide the services required. GAO found several other factors which were adversely affecting proper utilization of the home health benefits: (1) physicians who authorize program services do not appear to be taking a very active role in the program; (2) Medicare contractors had little specific comparative information about the utilization practices of home health agencies; (3) the medical documentation in agency case files was often not complete; (4) home visits with beneficiaries were needed to verify various program requirements; and (5) contractors have little incentive to make proper coverage determinations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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