Medicare to test paying for elderly home day care
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Medicare will test the possibility of paying for day-care services for disabled elderly people, the agency said on Thursday.
“This demonstration will permit Medicare to assess whether providing medical adult day-care services through the home health benefit will improve patient outcomes and provide the opportunity for some respite for beneficiaries’ caregivers,” Dr. Mark McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a statement.
The idea is to let home caregivers use the day-care facilities for some of the day, instead of caring for the patient at home.
Up to 15,000 beneficiaries at any one time will be eligible to enroll in the three-year demonstration, which is scheduled to begin in February 2006, CMS said.
The demonstration is limited to no more than five sites nationwide, it said.
“Medicare-certified home health agencies, or corporate entities that include one or more such agencies, are eligible to be selected as demonstration sites,” CMS said in a statement.
CMS estimated there are 2,100 licensed medical adult day-care facilities across the United States that provide health care, social interaction and caregiver respite services.
They can care for patients who are both physically and mentally impaired, including patients with dementia.
“Since these adult day-care services will be provided in coordination with the home health benefit, beneficiaries will not have any associated out-of-pocket costs for these additional services while enrolled in the demonstration,” CMS said.
Medicare is a joint state-federal health insurance program for the elderly and covers 43 million Americans.
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