Medicare: Home Health Agencies With High Visit Rates Skew Averages

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed Medicare's reimbursement of home health agencies (HHA), focusing on whether: (1) there are reasons why proprietary HHAs provide more visits than voluntary and governmental agencies; (2) there is any justification for the extra visits; and (3) the skewing effect of the high visit rates by proprietary agencies could be removed when calculating the number of visits for purposes of devising a prospective payment system (PPS) for home health.