HCP’s Michael Chernew, PhD, recently shared his thoughts about Medicare’s home health care system with listeners of “The Diane Rehm Show” on American University Radio. Rehm interviewed Chernew and three other health care experts about the Senate’s anticipated reductions in spending on Medicare’s home health care program.

In the discussion, Chernew noted that the biggest issue plaguing Medicare home health care is the lack of both appropriate payment rates and close monitoring of wasteful spending. He stressed that any Medicare home health care reform must address these critical issues. When asked if identifying areas of waste would be an easy task, Chernew replied that it would not be easy but that a number of indicators exist that could help to achieve this goal. “The challenge is to preserve the valuable services delivered while eliminating wasteful and fraudulent service delivery,” says Chernew. “On average, home care agencies can absorb lower payments, but since agencies are in different circumstances, we might need to develop strategies to protect high-quality agencies that might be overly adversely affected by reductions in reimbursement rates.”

Chernew noted that the home health care program probably does not reduce use of nursing homes or hospitals enough to save money, but that the goal of health care services should not be focused only on saving money. “Our objective should be to provide health care benefit and a reasonable cost,” he says. To hear Chernew’s full remarks, please listen to the radio broadcast.

Chernew also appeared in the segment “When Less Is More: Some Health Screenings Deemed Risky,” on the public radio show “The Takeaway” on November 18.