This time, it was on Beacon Hill, the location of the Massachusetts Capitol and home base for the Commonwealth's government officials.
I, and two of my VNA of Boston colleagues, attended a reception hosted by our local association, the Massachusetts Home Care Alliance. Our positions:
- Allow trained and certified home health aides to administer certain medications in the home.
- Change how specific home health services are reimbursed, including paying for telehealth.
- Establish a more equitable rate of payment of home care agencies providing continuous skilled nursing care to children.
- And most importantly, create reasonable reimbursement rates for services provided to Medicaid recipients.
Pictured: Maria Dunn, RN,, clinical manager, and Janice Sullivan, vice president of external affairs.
From our meetings with representatives, it's clear that the process to develop a comprehensive and unified health care cost containment bill will be long and contentious. Despite Governor Patrick's proposals, it's likely he will have a long road ahead of him to push through the reforms that his bill contains. Some members of the legislature perceive that the Governor seeks a quick victory on this topic to aid in this emerging national role in pushing the President's own health reform law across the country. And not everyone's willing to play it seems.
Then again, no one predicted that the Massachusetts legislature would give then Governor Romney a health care victory he could tout for his own presidential ambitions. The Democrat controlled legislature did just that for the Republican governor... so, a decisive win for Governor Patrick could certainly still be in the cards.
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