Medicare Home Health: Clarifying the Homebound Definition Is Likely to Have Little Effect on Costs and Access
April 2002 Medicare Home Health: Clarifying the Homebound Definition Is Likely to Have Little Effect on Costs and Access (GAO-02-555R) Medicare's home health benefit provides skilled nursing and other services to beneficiaries who are homebound. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had a long-standing policy that beneficiaries who regularly attend adult day care were not considered homebound, particularly if the purpose of attending was to receive nonmedical or custodial care. In 2000, Congress indicated that Medicare beneficiaries who attended adult day care could still be considered homebound if they still met the other homebound . . .
