Literature Review

BULLETIN: HHS repeals nursing home staffing rule provisions McKNights Long-Term Care News; by Kimberly Marselas; 12/2/25 The Department of Health and Human Services today repealed key provisions of the minimum staffing standards for long-term care facilities finalized in 2024. The move follows months of legal and legislative challenges, which had already rendered hourly staffing and registered nurse requirements moot. HHS said it was repealing provisions in alignment with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which imposed a nine-year moratorium on the rule’s staffing measures. ... Notice of the appeal was posted in the Federal Register Tuesday morning. Editor's Note: Click here for the official publication of this repeal, scheduled to be published on 12/3/25.

'It has made my life a lot easier': New Ohio program pays people to care for their loved ones at homeWTOL-11, Columbus, OH; by Kevin Landers; 11/24/25 Mark Straub, of Delaware County, started caring for his 93-year-old mother about two years ago. As much as he loves to have his mother at home instead of a nursing home, caring for a loved one 24/7 brings with it stress, both emotional and financial. ... The average cost of in-home care in Ohio is $60,238, according to CareScout. The average cost of nursing home care is $108,500 a year, or about $9,000 per month. Thanks to a new program in Ohio, those who care for a loved one at home are about to get financially easier. It’s called Structured Family Caregiving, or SFC. Currently, at least 11 states have formal Medicaid SFC programs that pay family members. “I didn’t believe it at first, until I got that first paycheck and I really wanted to cry, “ said Tsavaris.

New from MedPAC: 2025 Payment Basics series MedPAC - Medicare Payment Advisory Commission; 11/24/25 MedPAC announces the release of the updated 2025 Medicare Payment Basics series. MedPAC's mission is to advise the Congress on Medicare issues, and part of that mission is providing clear and accessible information about how Medicare works. Payment Basics is a series of explainers on how Medicare's payment systems function. These "basics" are typically no more than 5 pages long and feature handy diagrams that visually depict how the payment systems calculate providers' payments. MedPAC produces "basics" for the major payment systems (20 in all), and updates the series once a year in the fall. The updated versions are now available here.

CMS' TEAM model leaves hospitals scrambling before 2026 launch Modern Healthcare; by Bridget Early; 11/21/25 On January 1, 2026, Medicare will launch the Medicare Transforming Episode Accountability Model (TEAM), a mandatory fee-for-service model with bundled payments for five common procedures. ... More than 700 hospitals are required to participate and develop partnerships for post-acute care.  Detailed information on the model and a list of participating hospitals can be found here. 

He built a nursing home empire despite state investigations. Now, lawsuits are piling upCal Matters; by Jocelyn Wiener; 11/20/25California nursing homes affiliated with Shlomo Rechnitz are facing lawsuits alleging that patients were raped, ignored and unnecessarily exposed to COVID-19. His companies deny the allegations. In February 2024, a Los Angeles County jury awarded $2.34 million to an 84-year-old nursing home resident named Betsy Jentz, finding that the facility had violated her rights on 132 occasions, at times leading to serious injuries. [Three more equally offensive cases.] All of these facilities have one thing in common: state records list Shlomo Rechnitz as an owner. Court documents show Rechnitz and his companies have denied all allegations in all of the cases.

Three Palmetto GBA ReportsPalmetto press release; 11/21/25

Telehealth survives again: What the most recent flexibility extension means for providers JD Supra; by Conor Duffy and Danielle Tangorre; 11/17/25 On November 12, 2025, President Trump signed H.R. 5371 the “Continuing Appropriations, Agriculture, Legislative Branch, Military Construction, and Veterans Affairs and Extensions Act, 2026” (the Act). The Act ended the federal government shutdown by providing necessary funding; it also extends key Medicare telehealth flexibilities to January 30, 2026. ... This represents another short-term extension of Medicare telehealth flexibilities that will again need to be revisited in January 2026. ... Medicare Telehealth Flexibilities Extended by the Act [include]:

Hospital-at-home programs gripped by uncertainty Modern Healthcare; by Diane Eastabrook; 11/17/25 ... Stopgap legislation signed into law last week continues the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver until the end of January. The short extension is creating more confusion and uncertainty for health systems hoping to start or scale hospital-at-home, said Dr. Stephen Dorner, chief of clinical operations and medical affairs at Mass General Brigham’s Healthcare at Home program. Guest Editor’s Note, by Judi Lund-Person: Health systems who had Hospital-at-Home programs are rethinking their plans to reopen their programs, largely due to the very short waiver extension until January 30,  2026. According to Modern Healthcare, a bill has been introduced, titled the “Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act.” The waiver for Hospital-at- Home would be extended for five years, through the end of 2030.

Federal government re-opens CHAP; Press Release; 11/13/25 On November 12, the U.S. House passed the Senate Amendment to H.R. 5371, ending the 43-day government shutdown. The continuing resolution (CR) provides funding for most agencies through January 30, 2026, at current levels, and grants full-year 2026 funding to select departments, including Agriculture, FDA, Legislative Branch, military construction, and Veterans Affairs. It also contains measures relevant to the home care community. 

Home health services drive elevated medical costs for UnitedHealth Group Home Health Care News; by Morgan Gonzales; 10/28/25 Home health services are touted as cost-saving for payers, and industry stakeholders often advise providers to share data demonstrating these savings with payers and policymakers. The cost-saving nature of home health may not always be evident, however. UnitedHealth Group reported that home health services have contributed to elevated medical cost trends when discussing Medicaid margins on the company’s third-quarter earnings call.

Medicare finalizes controversial cut to specialty care next year HealthcareDive; by Rebecca Pifer; 11/3/25 The CMS finalized the Medicare physician fee schedule for 2026 on Friday [10/31], one day before the statutory deadline. Medicare has locked in a controversial pay cut for specialty doctors next year, normalizing reimbursement between specialists and primary care doctors and curbing the influence of a powerful physician association in setting rates. ...  The -2.5% adjustment is meant to account for non-time based services becoming more efficient over time as technology improves and workflows become smoother. As a result, they’re easier to perform, so Medicare is overpaying, regulators say.

Improving end-of-life care: Making hospice and home support accessible Cure; by Maureen Canavan and Dr. Kerin Adelson; 10/22/25 Maureen Canavan and Dr. Kerin Adelson, healthcare executive, chief quality and value officer, and professor of Breast Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, sat down with us to discuss critical issues in end-of-life care. In this interview, they explore the urgent need for policy and system-level changes to improve access to hospice and supportive home care, highlighting how current reimbursement structures often fail to meet the needs of patients and families at the end of life. Canavan is an epidemiologist at Yale Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy, and Effectiveness Research Center (COPPER) and affiliated faculty at Yale Institute for Global Health.

The best, worst states for Medicare: ReportBecker's Payer Issues; by Elizabeth Casolo; 10/16/25Vermont, Utah and Minnesota topped the Commonwealth Fund’s Medicare performance scorecard in 2025, whereas Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana struggled the most. The healthcare research foundation evaluated states on criteria spanning four domains: access to care, quality of care, costs and affordability, and population health. These performance indicators draw from CMS, federal surveys and other public data sources. The Commonwealth Fund ranked states according to how well Medicare was working based on those indicators. The organization mostly reviewed data from 2023 through 2025.