Delta Connect Blog

A Medicare demonstration project bundling payment for home infusion of intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) maps a potential way forward for future reimbursement changes involving home infusion more broadly, which would benefit larger providers like BioScrip, Walgreen, CVS, Express Scripts, privately-held Diplomat that recently filed an S-1 and privately-held AxelaCare Health.  While the demonstration will have limited impact in the near term, given that insurers tend to piggy back on Medicare even though it comprises less than 15-20% of the industry payer mix for specialty home infusion providers, the policies CMS wants to test could have reverberating effects among all insurers and bring consistency to the current haphazard state of home infusion reimbursement. 

With the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sets out a plan to recalibrate all 153 Home Health Resource Groups in the case mix adjustment model. These proposed changes, if finalized later this year, would result in a dramatic reshaping of the payment distribution model. CMS has evaluated and modified all variables that affect the assignment of an HHRG to a particular patient episode.