Fact Sheet: Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability Proposed Rule Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a proposed rule to advance equity and bolster protections for people with disabilities. The proposed rule, Discrimination on the Basis of Disability in Health and Human Service Programs or Activities, updates, clarifies, and strengthens the implementing regulation for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), the statute that prohibits discrimination against otherwise qualified individuals on the basis of disability in programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance or are conducted by a Federal agency.
The historic proposed rule provides robust civil rights protections for people with disabilities in federally funded health and human services programs. It advances the promise of the Rehabilitation Act and helps to ensure that people with disabilities are not subjected to discrimination in any program or activity receiving funding from HHS just because they have a disability. This proposed rulemaking is consistent with Section 504 statutory text, congressional intent, legal precedent, and the Biden-Harris Administration’s priority of advancing equity and civil rights and protecting Americans’ access to health care and human services programs and activities.
Read the full Proposed Rule
[The first 50 pages are the rationale and students that support changes that are relevant to in-home providers; Pages 340-400 are the actual proposed rule]
Read a Summary of the Rule |
Home Health Providers Must Lean Into Mitigation Strategies To Combat CMS Cuts
Home Health Care News | By Joyce Famakinwa
It’s been almost a month since the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the CY 2024 home health payment rule, and providers and industry stakeholders are still critical of the federal agency’s misconceptions about home health.
With cuts coming, operators must lean on mitigation strategies to prepare. That’s one key takeaway from a recent webinar hosted by home-based care technology company Axxess.
In the wake of the final payment rule, industry players made waves for calling out what they viewed as CMS’ “dismissive” position when it comes to data and evidence provided by home health companies and advocacy groups.
Along these lines, some in the industry also believe that CMS has a distorted view of the home health’s profits based on faulty data.
“They have a very clear picture of an industry that they believe is getting significantly overpaid, and is just rolling in the profits, which is why they don’t seem to care about the rate cuts,” Robert Markette, a health law attorney with Hall, Render, Killian, Heath and Lyman, said during the webinar. “Their data doesn’t reflect reality, and their data comes out of flawed cost reporting, primarily, and then whatever MedPAC does to get their numbers.”
Markette noted that CMS data paints a picture of reimbursement on Medicare exceeding home health costs by 45%. The federal agency’s data also has home health costs in 2022 decreasing by 2.9%, and average margins across the industry checking in at 24.9%.
“Last year, they did not impose the entire permanent cut, which means they’re going to have to consider a temporary cut in the future, and each year they tell us that temporary cut will get larger, and they don’t see that as a problem because they think we’re making these huge profits,” Markette said. “We have to deal with that math problem.”
Although providers are still reacting to the final rule, it’s important to begin strategizing to lessen the impact of potential headwinds…
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Societal Polarization Regarding Vaccinations Found to be Distorting Accuracy of People's Recall of Pandemic
Medical Xpress | By Bob Yirka
A quartet of psychologists, economists and health behaviorists from the University of Bamberg, the University of Chicago, the University of Vienna and the University of Erfurt, respectively, has found that people's political views on vaccinations is colorizing their memories of the severity of the global pandemic.
In their paper published in the journal Nature, Philipp Sprengholz, Luca Henkel, Robert Böhm and Cornelia Betsch, describe how they conducted surveys of people regarding the pandemic and what they learned from it.
The editors at Nature have posted a Research Briefing outlining the work done by the team on this effort and also an Editorial discussing possible implications of their findings.
Most health organizations around the world have deemed the global pandemic to be over despite the fact that people all over the world are still being infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus—this is because of the degree of immunity that has been built up, both by people being infected and those who have been and continue to be vaccinated.
By all accounts, the pandemic was a major event in modern world history—in addition to the many people who were made ill or died, most economies around the world took a major hit. And because it was such a major event, many in the science community have begun to take a look back—some at its many impacts, and others looking for lessons learned.
In this new effort, the research team suggests that one of the lessons that needs to be learned is that once a pandemic is over, people will remember it differently, depending on their political views—in this case, on their views regarding vaccinations.
To learn more about how people remember the severity of the pandemic, the research team surveyed over 10,000 people living in 11 wealthy, Northern Hemisphere countries, asking them to rate their risk of infection. Some of those people living in Germany had responded to a survey conducted earlier, by the same group, asking them the same questions. On the second go-round, those people in Germany were also asked to try to remember how they had rated their risk in the first survey…
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2023 RIHC Home Care Chartbook Webinar
December 6th at 12 pm MT
Learn more about the 2023 Home Care Chartbook released earlier this month during a webinar with the team from KNG, along with co-sponsors at NAHC.
Register now here |
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