GAO: Utilization of Home Health Care By State

July 15, 2002 GAO: Utilization of Home Health Care By StateOn May 23, 2002 the General Accounting Office (GAO) released a letter to Representative Henry Waxman discussing the variation in Medicare home health use across states. Using home health claims for the first six months of 2001 from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, GAO compiled statistics on home health users, home health visits, home health episodes, and the percentage of home health users with multiple episodes for each state. A home health episode, the basis for Medicare payment under the prospective payment system, is up to a 60-day . . .