Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tim Scott (RS.C.) will introduce legislation Wednesday that would extend the Acute Home Hospital Care (AHCAH) waiver program past its 2024 expiration date.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) introduced several waivers and flexibilities in 2020, allowing many inpatient-level hospital services to be performed in patients’ homes.
The AHCAH program was initially set to expire with the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, but was extended until December 31, 2024, by the Consolidated Appropriations Act passed last year.
Carper and Scott’s bill would further extend the flexibilities provided by the AHCAH for another five years.
“Since Hospital at Home was implemented just a few years ago, we have seen this program deliver positive patient outcomes and reduce costs across the country,” Carper said in a statement.
“I recently had the opportunity to celebrate Delaware’s own ChristianaCare when they admitted their 1,000th patient through the program,” he continued. “Today, I am pleased to join Senator Scott in introducing legislation to extend the Hospital at Home program for five years and ensure that hospitals across the country can continue to meet seniors right where they are.”
Carper joined Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) earlier this year in presenting another bill This would also build on the AHCAH program to include patients in observation status, those whose doctors are still determining whether they need to be admitted or can be discharged.
A Carper aide said Political recently that the senator plans to introduce legislation making home hospitalization exemptions permanent.
A CMS to study of November, which observed patients admitted under the AHCAH waiver from November 2021 to March 2023, found that they experienced a “low mortality rate consistent with hospital-at-home literature and minimal complications related to referral back to the physical hospital.” . “
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