Care at Home

Waller attorneys advise healthcare providers, payors, and investors with regard to the growing range of home healthcare services that fall under the care at home umbrella, including hospital-at-home, home visits by doctors, home-based ancillary services, and home-based post-acute care.  

The combination of patient demographic trends, advances in technology, and state and federal budget issues makes care at home a necessary component of a sustainable healthcare system for the nation. Providers, operators, investors, and policymakers agree that home-based healthcare options are transforming how healthcare is delivered and the economics that drive it.

Regardless of the specialty, care at home has a discreet set of local, state and federal legal issues, including corporate practice of medicine limitations, site-of-service restrictions, scope of practice professional considerations, supervision requirements, reimbursement issues, telehealth regulations, and traditional home health licensure requirements. At the same time, the regulations have not fully caught up with the various business models that are being adopted, and CMS and states are actively experimenting with waivers, pilot programs, and new reimbursement methodologies.

Waller has a multi-disciplinary team with the subject matter expertise, operational know-how, and public policy resources to anticipate and avoid barriers to entering into and competing in the care at home market, including:

• Providing day-to-day advice to care at home operators to mitigate regulatory risk even as regulatory frameworks continue to evolve
• Advising clients on buy-side and sell-side transactional issues related to care at home business and clinical models
• Negotiating payor agreements with commercial plans, employers, and Medicare Advantage plans with regard to home-based healthcare reimbursement methodology, including bundled payments and other alternative fee arrangements
• Assisting clients with establishing networks or partnerships among providers to deliver more coordinated and higher quality care at home
• Counsel clients on the unique medical liability risks associated with a care at home healthcare enterprise
• Tracking regulatory developments and policy initiatives in order to advise clients on current and future market dynamics
• Advising policymakers about the clinical, economic, and operational opportunities with regard to home-based healthcare services