January 12, 2021 – U.S health care policymakers just announced their plans to expand the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model. This is a 9 state Medicare demonstration to align reimbursement quality of care and reimbursement. The model is currently active in Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, Washington, Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee, and has led to a 4.6% improvement in home health agencies’ quality scores, with $141 million in annual Medicare savings.

Based on these numbers, The Moran Company, a research and consulting firm based in Washington D.C., estimated that a nationwide HHVOP Model could result in $6.3 billion in savings over 10 years. They used the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring methodology to come up with this estimate, and also predict that expanding the model would lead to better post-acute care outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries.