Without adequate safeguards, a pandemic policy allowing hospitals to treat acutely ill patients in their homes could enable providers and financial backers to pocket taxpayer subsidies while offering lower-quality care, a Cornell expert warns in new research.
Before agreeing to make “hospital-at-home” programs permanent, Congress and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should conduct research to determine if they save money and deliver treatment on par with inpatient care, said Rosemary Batt, the Alice Hanson Cook Professor of Women and Work at Cornell.
“Beyond a handful of pre-pandemic small studies, no systematic evidence exists that the current CMS hospital-at-home programs provide the same level of care that hospitals provide for the acutely ill,” Batt said. “Too many questions remain unanswered, and CMS lacks the necessary reporting and data systems to ensure provider accountability.” Read more.
