Take Action for Home Health
(Nov. 12, 2025) LeadingAge NY urges members to take steps now to urge Congress to support two important home health initiatives: a pause and revision of the Calendar Year (CY) 2026 Medicare Proposed Home Health Payment Rule and support for legislation that makes permanent telehealth flexibilities for home health, hospice, and other providers.
The CY 2026 Medicare Home Health Proposed Rule would cut the home health fee-for-service (FFS) payment rate by 9% and reduce payments to home health agencies (HHAs) by over $1.1 billion, threatening access to essential home-based services for older adults and people with disabilities. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) implementation of a new payment system (the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM)) in 2020 and the nearly 9% payment cuts since CY 2023 have resulted in the closure of over 1,000 HHAs in the past five years. Fewer patients are able to access home health care as a result, increasing emergency room visits and hospital readmissions – both more costly forms of care – and increasing mortality rates.
Take action here and ask your representatives to co-sponsor new legislation to delay CMS-proposed cuts in FFS payments and protect and preserve home health care, particularly not-for-profit home health care, and put pressure on CMS to rescind their proposed cuts.
Members are also urged to take action here to ensure that the telehealth flexibilities expired as of Sept. 30th due to the federal government shutdown return and are available on a permanent basis. The alert seeks House and Senate support for the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies (CONNECT) for Health Act of 2025 (H.R. 4206/S. 1261) to stop the telehealth cliff by authorizing these flexibilities permanently this year. LeadingAge National urges members to include in the letter a request that their local congressional representatives sign on as sponsors of the bill.
Members should note that the recent efforts to end the shutdown include an extension of telehealth flexibilities to Jan. 30, 2026 and a waiver of pay-as-you-go (PAYGO), which would ensure that the cuts from H.R. 1 enacted in July 2025 do not trigger a 4% cut to Medicare.
Other updates on telehealth flexibilities can be found here and here.
Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org