By David Sayen, Medicare Regional Administrator

Medicare covers a variety of heath care services that you can receive in the comfort and privacy of your home. These include intermittent skilled nursing care, physical therapy, speech-language pathology services, and occupational therapy.

Such services used to be available only at a hospital or doctor’s office. But they’re just as effective, more convenient, and usually less expensive when you get them in your home.

If you get your Medicare benefits through a Medicare Advantage health plan (instead of Original Medicare), check with the plan for details about how it provides your Medicare-covered home health benefits.

To be eligible for home health services, you must be under a doctor’s care and receive your services under a plan of care established and reviewed regularly by a physician. He or she also needs to certify that you need one or more home health services.

In addition, you must be homebound and have a doctor’s certification to that effect. (Being homebound means leaving your home isn’t recommended because of your condition, or your condition keeps you from leaving without using a wheelchair or walker, or getting help from another person.) Also, you must get your services from a home health agency that is Medicare-approved.

If you meet the criteria, Medicare pays for covered home health services for as long as you’re eligible and your doctor certifies that you need them.

Skilled nursing services are covered when they’re given on a part-time or intermittent basis. In order for Medicare to cover such care, it must be necessary and ordered by your doctor for your specific condition. You must not need full-time nursing care.

Skilled nursing services are given by either a registered nurse or a licensed practical nurse under an RN’s supervision. Nurses provide direct care and teach you and your caregivers about your care. Examples of skilled nursing care include: giving IV drugs, shots, or tube feedings; changing dressings; and teaching about prescription drugs or diabetes care. Any service that could be done safely by a non-medical person (or by yourself) without the supervision of a nurse, isn’t skilled nursing care.

Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology services have to be specific, safe, and effective treatments for your condition.

Before your home health care begins, the home health agency should tell you how much of your bill Medicare will pay. The agency should also tell you if any items or services they give you aren’t covered by Medicare, and how much you’ll have to pay for them. This should be explained by both talking with you and in writing. The agency should give you a notice called the Home Health Advance Beneficiary Notice (HHABN) before giving you services and supplies that Medicare doesn’t cover.

What isn’t covered? Some examples:

• 24-hour-a-day care at home;
• Meals delivered to your home;
• Homemaker services like shopping, cleaning, and laundry (when this is the only care you need, and when these services aren’t related to your plan of care);
• Personal care given by home health aides like bathing, dressing, and using the bathroom (when this is the only care you need).

If your doctor decides you need home health care, you can choose from among the Medicare-certified agencies in your area. (However, Medicare Advantage plans may require that you get home health services only from agencies they contract with.)

One good way to look for a home health agency is by using Medicare’s “Home Health Compare” web tool, at www.medicare.gov/HHCompare. This tool lets you compare home health agencies by the types of services they offer and the quality of care they provide.

For more details on Medicare’s home health benefit, please read our booklet, “Medicare and Home Health Care.” It’s online at http://www.medicare.gov/publications/pubs/pdf/10969.pdf.

David Sayen is Medicare’s regional administrator for California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific Trust Territories.

Most older Americans (63%) are very worried they won’t be able to pay for their medical care as they age, according to a report by The Insured Retirement Institute (IRI).  From information contained in the report, we should be worried.

According to an article in LifeHealthPro which reviewed the IRI report, people on Medicare can expect to spend well over $350,000 on their medical care and insurance premiums during their retirement years.

The LifeHealthPro article highlighted some of the findings in the IRI report:

● For 2012, Medicare Part B premiums will account for 8.2% of the average Social Security benefit, up from 5.1% in 2000.

● While the average Social Security check is 31% higher than it was in 2001, premiums for Medicare Part B have doubled.

● While 63% of all boomers lack confidence in their ability to cover medical expenses in retirement, the concern is most pronounced among younger boomers: 72% percent of boomers ages 50-54 are concerned about their ability to cover medical costs in retirement.

The full IRI report can be found here.

I recently wrote about my trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland where government health care systems cover most medical costs for older citizens. Losing their life savings to pay for health care is not an issue for most people in Ireland – or Europe. Health care costs are going up across the pond, but not as much as in the United States.  This comes back to the question I have asked before:  How much can older Americans be expected to pay for their Medical care? I guess that’s the trillion dollar question.

Growth in U.S. Health Spending Remains Slow in 2010

U.S. health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010, according to the annual report of national health expenditures (NHE). The low rate of growth means Americans got less health care than in previous years. The report notes that U.S. health care spending grew only 3.9 percent in 2010, reaching $2.6 trillion or $8,402 per person, just 0.1 percentage point faster than in 2009.

Should the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) get credit for this slow growth?  Or is it that Americans, so many of them with lousy health insurance with high deductibles – or no health insurance – are afraid to go to the doctor? Nobody knows the answer to this question, but the slowing growth of health care expenditures is a good thing for government budgets and employer-based health insurance premiums.

Marilyn Tavenner, acting CMS administrator thinks the actions of the Obama administration should get some credit. “We have worked hard since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 to lower health care cost growth,” said  “We believe that the tools in health reform will help keep health care cost growth low while improving the value of care for consumers.”

Findings from the report include:

• Household health care spending equaled $725.5 billion in 2010 and represented 28 percent of total health spending, slightly lower than its 29 percent share in 2007.
• Growth in total private health insurance premiums slowed in 2010 to 2.4 percent from 2.6 percent in 2009, continuing a slowdown that began in 2003.

• Retail prescription drug spending (10 percent of total health care spending) grew only 1.2 percent to $259.1 billion in 2010, a substantial slowdown from 5.1-percent growth in 2009 and the slowest rate of growth for prescription drug spending recorded in the NHE.

• The federal government financed 29 percent of the nation’s health care spending in 2010, an increase of six percentage points from its share in 2007 of 23 percent, and reached $742.7 billion. Part of that increase came from enhanced Federal matching funds for State Medicaid programs under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act which expired in 2011.  Medicare spending grew 5.0 percent in 2010, a deceleration from growth of 7.0 percent in 2009.

• Medicaid spending increased 7.2 percent in 2010, slowing from 8.9-percent growth in 2009.

• The state and local government share of total health spending declined from 18 percent in 2007 to 16 percent in 2010 and totaled $421.1 billion, in part due to the temporary assistance in the Recovery Act.

• Hospital spending, which accounted for roughly 30 percent of total health care spending, grew 4.9 percent to $814.0 billion in 2010, compared to growth of 6.4 percent in 2009.

• Private businesses financed $534.5 billion, or 21 percent of total health spending in 2010, down from a 23-percent share in 2007.

Information in this report can be accessed at the following web location:

http://www.cms.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/02_NationalHealthAccountsHistorical.asp#TopOfPage