Sample Home Care Month Letter from Providers to Legislators

Sample Home Care Month Letter from Providers to Legislators

Home Care Month offers a valuable avenue for providers to introduce themselves to lawmakers. This is especially important in today's challenging state budget environment where effective outreach helps build general recognition of home care, demonstrates the value of home care services to our patients, and shows why home care is a wise investment of Medicaid and Medicare dollars.

MHCA encourages members to complete the following Home Care Month-themed letter to state lawmakers. Use your letter as an opportunity to invite public officials on a home health visit. Or, you may also want to include with your letter copies of any Home Care Month media attention you may have gained.

SAMPLE LETTER TO LEGISLATORS

[Insert Date]

The Honorable [insert legislator's name]

[Insert legislator's address]

Dear [Senator/Assemblyman/Assemblywoman] [insert legislator's name]:

I am writing today in honor of National Home Care Month this November and to urge your support for cost-effective home care services at a time when the home care community is being threatened with enormous and destructive cuts.

As a [insert title] at [insert agency name] in your district, my central goal is to serve every patient with compassion, dedication, skill and respect. Our agency provides quality care in the patient's home setting - an environment that not only offers the most comfort but also an opportunity for patients to live independently, take charge of their health management, and maintain their sense of dignity.

[Insert agency's name] visiting nurses, home health aides and therapists provide: in-home wound care services for patients following surgery, vital daily living assistance for patients with limited capacity to perform their own self-care, support for technology-dependent patients who depend on life-sustaining home medical equipment for vital functions, and numerous other services that keep patients out of the hospital or long-term care facility and living healthily in the community.

These are reasons enough to support investment in home care services. Yet while the human and community benefit of home care is unquestionable, home care is also a cost-effective model for delivering vital services appropriately scaled to a patient's needs. Without these services, the only option for many patients is hospitalization or nursing-home admission - or to go without care. Home care truly is the safety net of our health system.

And yet for all of the important work we do, and for all of the reasons why our work fulfills sound policy goals, home care has nevertheless been repeatedly inflicted with Medicaid cuts that undermine home care's ability to provide services and help keep patients in the community. For agencies like mine with a budget of [Insert Size of Budget], these cuts will almost certainly mean [Insert Impact].

The cuts are harmful enough alone, but their impact is even more lethal when you consider the added cost and administrative pressures of unprecedented new mandates that have been foisted on providers. This includes a massive state-mandated Medicare rebilling effort recently imposed upon providers. The rebilling effort, which is costing [insert agency name] [insert amount] of dollars to administratively review and resubmit [insert number] prior-year claims, stems from the expiration of a federal program to efficiently determine whether Medicare or Medicaid is responsible in the case of dual-eligible patients. This new administrative burden puts providers in the middle of a payment-determination and coverage process that is the responsibility of two government payors. It is also costing us precious resources at a time when funding is being further cut. This is just one example of the recent accumulation of new mandates and taxes which, together with cuts, undermine our ability to provide services to the elderly, persons with disabilities and the chronically ill.

This November, please join me in recognizing the vital role of home care throughout The State of Minnesota. Insist on pursuing constructive solutions for maintaining cost-effective home care services in place of catastrophic cuts that will only jeopardize access to care. If you need any more information about the role of home care in our community, please do not hesitate to contact me at [insert contact information]. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

[Insert Name]

[Insert Title]