During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing held before the congressional recess, Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) questioned experts about at home health care.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. Moore, you're recognized.
00:02Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:03Ms. Graber, the University of Utah and my district
00:06has provided data that indicate that of the patients that
00:10require specialized post-acute care,
00:12the majority require either home health care or skilled nursing
00:16facilities.
00:17MedPAC has long indicated that there is sufficient access
00:20to home health care, but many people
00:22are saying that access measure is flawed.
00:25Could you shed some light on this?
00:26Should MedPAC adopt a new measure of access?
00:30If so, what elements should this measure incorporate?
00:35Thank you for the question, Mr. Moore.
00:37No, I don't think MedPAC's measure of access for home
00:40health is flawed.
00:41I support MedPAC's methodology.
00:46Is there any ways to, as we look at the approach to this,
00:50any ways that you would suggest we improve this?
00:52Mm-mm.
00:56Certainly, I think access to care issues
00:58are always something in the Medicare program
01:00that we need to pay attention to.
01:02I don't have a specific recommendation for you today,
01:04but I'm happy to follow up with your staff
01:06after today's hearing.
01:07And like my colleague, I represent several rural
01:09counties, Mr. Fleece, particularly in northern Utah.
01:14In many cases, telehealth is the best option
01:17for Medicare patients.
01:19How does Empath Health employ telehealth services
01:23to improve quality?
01:24What are some of the best practices that
01:26may be employed elsewhere?
01:27This is obviously a big topic that we're
01:29going through here in Congress, and we've
01:33had multiple times where this is going to expire,
01:36and we've done it temporarily.
01:38Can you share a little bit about how you would approach this?
01:42Thank you very much, Congressman Moore.
01:44And Empath Health prides itself at serving the rural communities
01:48across Florida.
01:49Telemedicine is a critical part of ensuring access to care,
01:54whether it's recertification of hospice eligibility
01:58or ensuring that in crisis that we
02:01can get access from communications perspective
02:04to all of our patients.
02:06It's also mission critical to our home-based care
02:08organizations, those that are suffering chronic disease
02:11or post-acute, to ensure that home-based care is there
02:16for the rural communities through telemedicine
02:18to reduce hospitalizations, readmissions
02:21that home-based care has been proven to demonstrate.
02:25And we are also always looking for additional infrastructure
02:29investment to ensure that not only do
02:32we have telemedicine from a policy perspective,
02:35but we are able to connect to the rural communities,
02:38whether that be through satellites or other technology
02:41that Empath invests.
02:43It's not just policy.
02:44It's also infrastructure from a technology perspective
02:47that is mission critical to reach the rural communities.
02:50Excellent.
02:51Lastly, Dr. Dhanjali, post-acute care facilities
02:54nationwide were operating at approximately 85% capacity
02:57back in, say, 2019, obviously before COVID-19 exacerbated
03:01much of those resources.
03:02Can you shed some light on current post-acute care
03:04capacity?
03:05Does our current post-acute care infrastructure
03:08have enough beds for patients in need?
03:10I think that, for the most part, beds are available.
03:14Why we're seeing shrinking access is not so much
03:18the bed availability.
03:19It's the inadequate payment or the restrictive criteria
03:23that are used in order to allow those patients to access.
03:27And I'll cite the Medicare Advantage challenges
03:30as a prime example of that fact.
03:34I yield back.
03:35Thank you, Dr. Dhanjali.