Amedisys Comments on Proposed CMS Home Health PPS Refinement and Rate Update
01 May 2007 - 12:21AM
PR Newswire (US)
BATON ROUGE, La., April 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Amedisys, Inc.
(Nasdaq: AMED or the "Company"), one of America's leading home
health nursing companies, commented today on the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") home health PPS refinement
and rate update. On Friday, April 27, 2007, CMS issued a Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking regarding the Home Health Prospective Payment
System Refinement and Rate Update for Calendar Year 2008. The
proposed rule includes changes to the base rate calculation,
refinements to the payment system, and new quality of care data
collection requirements, among others. According to the release,
the proposed rule is open for public comment for a period of 60
days from the date of the release and would be effective on January
1, 2008. We are currently evaluating the impact the proposed rule
could have on Amedisys, but are unable to provide an estimate of
any potential financial impact at this time. Once we have completed
our evaluation effort, we will do extensive testing to assure we
are comfortable with the modeling results. As the proposed changes
from CMS are multi-component changes to the home care reimbursement
system, we believe it is prudent to ensure that any information we
release is based upon programmatic modeling that has been
extensively tested. We anticipate that we will better understand
any possible financial impact over the next several weeks. However,
our estimate of that impact and/or the timing thereof may be
altered based upon any changes that may occur to the proposed
ruling. While we have not completed our analysis, CMS has included
their own impact analysis in the proposed ruling they published.
This analysis is summarized in Table 27 of the Proposed Rule. We
have no ability at this time to evaluate the accuracy of these
estimates and/or their relevance to any possible effect on our
company. The link to the CMS proposed rule is:
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/HomeHealthPPS/downloads/CMS-1541-P.pdf This
press release includes statements that may constitute "forward-
looking" statements, usually containing the words "believe,"
"estimate," "project," "expect" or similar expressions.
Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from the forward-looking statements. Factors that would cause or
contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to,
continued acceptance of the Company's services in the marketplace,
competitive factors, changes in government reimbursement
procedures, dependence upon third-party vendors, and other risks
discussed in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. By making these forward- looking statements,
the Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for
revisions or changes after the date of this release. Additional
information on the Company can be found at:
http://www.amedisys.com/ Contact: Amedisys, Inc. Amedisys, Inc.
Senior Vice President - Finance Chief Financial Officer Thomas J.
Dolan Dale E. Redman 225.292.2031 225.292.2031 DATASOURCE:
Amedisys, Inc. CONTACT: Thomas J. Dolan, Senior Vice President -
Finance, , or Dale E. Redman, Chief Financial Officer, , both of
Amedisys, Inc., +1-225-292-2031 Web site: http://www.amedisys.com/
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