Home care model growing popular

A California company is quickly becoming one of the leaders in a new--and some say, critically important--care delivery niche. Care Level Management, of Woodland Hills, CA, cares for chronically ill patients in their homes rather than making them come to a physician's office. The idea is to head off potentially serious and expensive complications which would otherwise put them in the hospital. Care Level's primary client is CMS, which is paying Care Level a monthly case stipend and fee per visit for a base of 25,000 Medicare enrollees to run a pilot test on this concept. For the pilot, CMS is targeting the 5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries who generate the greatest costs. In doing this, Care Level is taking a big gamble--it's agreed to return the money unless net patient costs are at least 5 percent lower than a similar group of patients in a control group. (Care Level gets to split any savings greater than 5 percent.)

To learn more about the program:
- read this New York Times article

Related Article:
Families choose unlicensed home care. Report

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