Reimbursement Opportunities for Caregiver Training in Rehabilitation: Using New CMS Training Service Codes.

Abstract

Family caregivers of patients with rehabilitation and chronic care needs are often instrumental in helping to minimize patient risks for safety and other adverse health events and to avoid unnecessary health care utilization. In the United States, outside of the inpatient rehabilitation unit, they often undertake complex care tasks with minimal training. Heretofore, caregiver training in outpatient, home health, or other care settings has not been a priority, because of lack of reimbursement by insurance payers. In this special communication, we describe novel new codes and reimbursement policies approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for caregiver training, discuss their advantages over previous policies, and present potential practice improvements and research opportunities to assess the effect of these codes on patient and caregiver outcomes.