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Showing posts with the label Family Practice Reimbursement Model

Home Health Agencies: Here's Why PDGM Payments Keep Falling Short

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Home health agencies can provide the right care, submit claims on time, and still see Medicare reimbursement come in lower than expected. The reason is often not simply a billing error. Under the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), reimbursement depends on several factors, including the patient's clinical characteristics, functional needs, comorbidities, timing of the period, and whether the period meets the requirements for a full 30-day payment. For 2026, CMS also finalized changes to PDGM case-mix weights, functional impairment levels, comorbidity adjustment subgroups, and Low-Utilization Payment Adjustment (LUPA) thresholds. CMS also finalized permanent and temporary payment adjustments for home health. That means a reimbursement drop deserves more than a quick review of the claim amount. The real question is: What changed between the care provided and the payment received? How PDGM Determines Home Health Payment PDGM uses a 30-day period of care rather than the older 60-day...

Is Your Family Practice Reimbursement Model on the Winning or Losing Side of CY2026’s Payment Split?

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For family practices, 2026 is not simply another year of Medicare payment updates. Changes to physician reimbursement are creating different financial effects depending on where and how care is delivered. That raises an important question for practice owners and administrators: Is your family practice reimbursement model positioned to benefit from CY2026 payment changes, or is it absorbing the downside? The answer depends on more than the headline Medicare conversion factor. Practice location, service mix, site of service, payer mix, coding, and revenue-cycle performance can all influence the actual financial outcome. Understanding these differences can help family practices make better decisions about staffing, service delivery, coding, and billing operations. The CY2026 Payment Environment Is Not Uniform A common mistake is to look at a Medicare payment update and assume every family practice will experience the same financial impact. That is rarely the case. Two family practices can...