House calls may seem like an old-fashioned idea, but a CMS experiment reveals that this approach has saved Medicare millions of dollars, according to a Kaiser Health News report.
The experiment, called Independence at Home, provides chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries with primary care services in the home setting. In the first year of the experiment, 17 participating practices served more than 8,400 Medicare beneficiaries.
Housecall Providers of Portland, Ore., which had been operating at a loss, saved Medicare an average of almost $13,600 for each patient in the pilot project, while the house calls practice at MedStar Washington Hospital in Washington, D.C., reduced the cost of care an average of $12,000 per patient, according to Kaiser Health News.
Independence at Home participants overall saved more than $25 million in the pilot's first year — an average of $3,070 per participating beneficiary, officials reported last June. CMS also awarded incentive payments of $11.7 million to nine participating practices that succeeded in reducing Medicare expenditures and met designated quality goals for the first year.
Medicare officials expect to announce the second round of payments next month, according to Kaiser Health News.
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