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In accordance with the budget bill adopted by the 134th General Assembly, the Ohio Department of Medicaid is implementing rate increases for many of Ohio’s fee-for-service home- and community-based services (HCBS) waiver programs.
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 Now that Ohio passed legislation requiring a license to operate a home care agency, don’t miss this opportunity to be part of the discussion on what the regulations to implement this new law will look like. Join members of the HCAOA Ohio State Chapter and the Ohio Council for Home Care & Hospice to discuss requirements for issues such as criminal background checks, training, applications for license and supervision.
Last week, HCAOA members joined members of the Ohio Council for Home Care and Hospice to review recently passed legislation to license home care agencies. More than 100 agencies joined the symposium either in-person or on zoom to hear the main requirements for a license including criminal background checks, scope of services and application requirements. Click here to view the licensure legislation.
HCAOA’s Ohio State Chapter will be joining the Ohio Council for Home Care and Hospice on August 25, from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. to review the new license law for home care agencies that recently passed. This event will focus on what the requirements will be to help agencies prepare for the implementation of the regulation and to ensure members understand what is needed to come into compliance.  HCAOA’s state chapters continue to monitor states’ legislative and regulatory actions. Here’s a quick listing of the most recent home care happenings around the country.  The state Senate recently passed Ohio’s budget bill, which included home care licensure. It will now go to the Conference Committee and finally to the governor for signature. A few weeks ago, HCAOA sent a letter to Representative Ginter. Click here to read the letter.
HCAOA members in Ohio recently participated in a meeting to discuss proposed legislation requiring licensure for Ohio’s medical and non-medical home care services. HCAOA decided to support current legislative language, rather than to propose additional specific services at this time. Click here to read the letter HCAOA sent to Representative Ginter.  Several of HCAOA’s State Chapters took action this week, sending letters to their State Medicaid Directors to offer suggestions about how to use the available 10% FMAP increase for Medicaid home and community-based services. CMS recently provided guidance to states about how they can use the federal funds to supplement, not supplant, existing state funds for Medicaid effective April 1, 2021. In the letter, HCAOA Chapters state the industry’s biggest concern and primary suggestion is use the funds to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for personal care services and private duty nursing so agencies can adequately recruit and retain essential workers to provide critical care at home to patients and clients The letter offers several other suggestions to enhance, expand, or strengthen Medicaid HCBS, including hazard pay, overtime pay, and shift differential pay for home care workers, new or additional Medicaid HCBS services especially during the pandemic, and support for family caregivers. To date, the Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona, South Carolina and Connecticut Chapters have sent letters, with others to follow.
You can read one of the full letters here.  Connecticut: Chapter Continues Advocacy for Medicaid Rate Increase
The HCAOA Connecticut State Chapter continues to advocate for an increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates for home care providers. In a major disappointment, the Department of Social Services recently posted on its website a modest increase in reimbursement and then withdrew it, purportedly to await the results of its provider rate cost survey and study. Joe Markley of Companions & Homemakers has led the advocacy efforts of the Chapter’s DSS Medicaid committee, forming a coalition of organizations supporting an increase, drafting a letter to the Governor in support and lobbying state officials. Last week, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a liability shield law, which protects health care providers from lawsuits related to “injury, death, or loss to property or person caused by exposure to, the transmission of, or contraction of COVID-19 or any mutation thereof,” except in the case of reckless, intentional or willful transmission. This laws to claims arising between March 9, 2020, and September 30, 2021.
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