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BOSTON (State House News Service) — When pandemic-era emergency health measures ended on May 11, a policy that had allowed home health care agencies to treat more patients came to a halt.
The Healey-Driscoll administration ended the COVID-19 public health emergency this spring, and with it, several policies that had allowed the government and health care agencies to have more flexibility. Among them was a measure that allowed physical therapists to conduct an initial comprehensive assessment visit for patients discharged from hospitals for home health care.
Under current regulations, a registered nurse has to conduct this visit, which is typically two or three hours and can include organizing a patient's medicines, teaching family members how to care for a newly-discharged patient, and administering therapy treatment, said Kristin Mattson, chief clinical and development officer at Care Central VNA & Hospice Inc.
When a physical therapist was able to conduct this initial and time-consuming appointment -- which must happen for a patient to be admitted to a home health agency -- it allowed agencies to take on more patients at once with more flexibility, Mattson said at a webinar Thursday hosted by the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association.
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"For an agency like mine, where our clinical team is large, but it's almost 50/50 nurses and physical therapists, we're back to only being able to admit, on any given day, the number of patients as we have nurses who are working," she said.
Home health care is one among many health care sectors facing widespread shortages and service cuts across the state.
"That loss of flexibility has really daunted capacity for a lot of agencies, all agencies," Mattson said.
Written by Sam Drysdale/SHNS.
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