On December 21, 2000, President Clinton signed into law the Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000, part of Public Law 106-554. Sections of this law modify Medicare coverage, payment mechanisms, and appeals procedures.

Coverage under the Medicare home health benefit will be expanded, making it easier to qualify, clarifying coverage for the use of telehealth services, increasing payments to home health agencies, and calling for various studies to further clarify payment and coverage issues.

The law provides new statutory language to clarify and broaden the homebound eligibility criterion in two ways:

1. Absences to receive health care treatment, including regular absences for therapeutic, psychosocial, or medical treatment at a licensed or accredited adult day-care program, will no longer disqualify a beneficiary from being considered homebound for eligibility purposes.
2. Absences to attend a religious service will be deemed to be absences of infrequent or short duration. Generally, a beneficiary is not considered homebound if his or her absences from the home are not infrequent or of short duration.

• Are not used in lieu of an in-person home health service ordered under a plan of care, and

• Are not considered a home health visit for purposes of eligibility or payment.

Other aspects of the home health provisions are effective as of December 21, 2000.