WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Chris Smith (R-Hamilton) joined Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Medicare Administrator Mark McClellan today to announce the enactment of a new demonstration project aimed at improving overall quality of life for homebound Medicare beneficiaries who qualify to receive home healthcare services.

Last year, Smith joined with Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts to author legislation (HR 1874) to fix current Medicare rules which prohibit homebound healthcare recipients from leaving their homes for reasons other than a doctor’s appointment, adult day care, or to attend a religious service. Together, Smith and Markey Co-Chair the Bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s disease.

“The existing guidelines create the negative side effect of forcing those who qualify for home healthcare benefits to remain imprisoned in their homes or risk losing their entire Medicare home healthcare benefit,” Smith said.

 “Under our reform provision, beneficiaries who meet the health criteria for receipt of home healthcare via Medicare will now be able to leave their home to visit with family, attend a child’s sporting event or school function, get some fresh air, or for any other reason,” he said.

 Smith went on to say that, “It simply does not make any sense for the system to place added burdens and restrictions on individuals who are already facing significant health complications.”

 “David Jayne, a Georgia resident who has lived with ALS for more than 15 years, exemplifies the problem that exists under the current limitations.  When he canceled a doctor’s appointment to attend the funeral of a friend, David lost his home healthcare.

 “Rather than simply throw in the towel and give up, David – whose voluntary muscle function is limited to movement of three fingers, and who uses a ventilator to breathe and a computer to speak – launched a national campaign to clarify the homebound provision.

“With his family in attendance today, years of hard work by David paid off as Secretary Thompson and Administrator McClellan unveiled the homebound demonstration project, language Congressman Markey and I were able to include in last year’s Medicare law,” Smith added.

In the coming months, Medicare will begin a pilot program in three states – Massachusetts, Missouri, and Colorado. The two-year pilot program will enroll 15,000 beneficiaries in the three states to determine any affects the changes will have on the delivery of quality care. Once the demonstration project is complete, HHS will have to report its findings to Congress.

“We are confident that once Medicare and HHS reviews this data, they will see that replacing the existing homebound restrictions with a tightly-crafted and well-defined definition of who qualifies to be a homebound beneficiary will only help improve quality of life and provide more freedom for the beneficiaries,” Smith said.

“The six-point definition provided in this demonstration project is very tight and is not something beneficiaries will be able to scam to game the system. Secretary Thompson himself said at today’s announcement that he is confident the demonstration program will be successful and that the reform could then be implemented nationwide; and I feel strongly this will be the case.

“As Medicare moves forward to implement this demonstration project, I will continue to work with Congressman Markey and others in Congress to ensure the program is properly implemented so we can work to make this much-needed relief available to Medicare home healthcare beneficiaries throughout the nation,” Smith added.