[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 53 (Thursday, May 2, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S3835]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE HOME HEALTH MODERNIZATION ACT OF 2002

  Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, I rise today, as an original cosponsor 
of the Home Health Modernization Act of 2002, to express my strong 
support for a clarification of the definition of ``homebound'' with 
respect to eligibility for home health services under the Medicare 
program.
  I want to tell you about Ms. Pamela Wolfenbarger of Fayettevelle, AR. 
Ms. Wolfenbarger is a quadriplegic as the result of an accident and has 
devoted the last twenty years to raising her son. Now that her son is 
grown, she would like to return to school so that she might become more 
self-sufficient financially. Due the current Medicare homebound policy, 
Ms. Wolfenbarger is unable to do so, nor can she leave her home to go 
clothes or food shopping, despite offers of assistance from a 
tremendous support group in her community. Ms. Wolfenbarger needs the 
services of a home health nurse to assist her in personal care, 
dressing, and transferring from her bed to her wheelchair.
  The current Medicare statute states: ``While an individual does not 
have to be bedridden to be considered to be confined to the home, the 
condition of the individual should be such that there exists a normal 
inability to leave home, that leaving home requires a considerable and 
taxing effort by the individual, and that absences from the home are 
infrequent or of relatively short duration, or are attributable to the 
need to receive medical treatment''.
  Problems have arisen because the terms ``infrequently'' and for 
periods of ``relatively short duration'' are comparative terms with no 
point of comparison, which has led the Centers for Medicare and 
Medicaid Services to interpret the statutory coverage criteria for home 
health as requiring patients to remain in their homes virtually at all 
times, except those times specifically excluded in the statute, in 
order to remain eligible for coverage of home health services. As a 
consequence, many beneficiaries who are dependent upon Medicare home 
services and medical equipment for survival, including Ms. 
Wolfenbarger, are being unnecessarily restricted to their homes out of 
fear that they will lose their home health benefits.
  I believe we need to correct this problem for people like Ms. 
Wolfenbarger, and that is why I have joined Senators Collins, Bond and 
Cleland in introducing S. 2085, to clarify the homebound definition. 
Under this important legislation, the current requirement that 
beneficiaries be allowed ``only infrequent absences of short duration'' 
would be eliminated. By doing so, reasonable absences from the home 
will be allowed and we will bring the home health benefit into the 21st 
century. I urge my Senate colleagues to support the Home Health 
Modernization Act of 2002.

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