Many essential hospitals have used an innovative program — the Acute Hospital Care at Home (AHCaH) waiver — to provide hospital-level care in patients’ homes. The benefits of home hospital care to patients have been well-documented. Of particular relevance to essential hospitals, hospital-level care in the home provides a unique opportunity to understand patients’ social context and to identify barriers to health, including challenges to medication adherence, worsening memory impairment, and resource limitations.
America’s Essential Hospitals commends Congress for the flexibility it provided as hospitals responded to the unprecedented public health emergency (PHE). This flexibility allowed hospitals to leverage technology to provide effective access to care and increase capacity through alternative care sites. As Congress continues considering legislation first implemented in response to the pandemic, it should make permanent policies that allow providers to expand access to care — including hospital-at-home — to improve the health of their communities.
Federal policymakers have shown bipartisan support in extending beyond the PHE the hospital-at-home waiver program, which currently supports more than 330 hospitals in 38 states. America’s Essential Hospitals supports the Hospital Inpatient Services Modernization Act (S. 4350 and H.R. 8260), which would extend the waiver by five years. The legislation highlights the continued success of hospital-at-home programs and the benefits of implementing a permanent version of the program.
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