IMPACT OF POLICY CHANGES MADE IN HOME HEALTH CARE SERVICE AS
A RESULT OF THE PASSAGE OF THE BALANCED BUDGET ACT OF 1997:
The proposed policy analysis will examine the issue of policy changes that have been made by the health care industry in relation to accommodating the consequences, implications, and stipulations mandated by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. This issue of home health care policy changes is being currently characterized and defined by a variety of sources.
These sources include: (1) The actual stipulations, mandates, consequences, and implications associated with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 itself; (2) Diverse politicians of all political parties who, in many of their discourses on the Balanced Budget Act as it relates to Medicare and its implications of home health care, are also motivated by a political agenda (Rodat & Zadoorian, 1996); (3) Home Health Care administrators whose basic goal is to provide quality service in a manner that is efficient, effective, and cost effective; (4) Geriatric health care providers such as physicians or nurses whose practice includes mostly older and aged patients; (5) Insurance companies whose primary goal is to provide coverage for areas not covered by medicare and to do so in a manner that ensures profit (MAGA, Limited, 1998); and (5) Senior citizens groups whose basic objective is to make sure that older people are provided with all the services they need and not left out of consideration on the basis of age or any other biased consideration (Pathfinders For Seniors, 1998).
Regarding the current status of the issue, several policy changes in home health care provided to older people have been enacted since the passage of the Balanced Budget Act. For example, Soundappan, Goodwin, Greengold, and Siegler (1997) report that many home health care agencies were in the process of making changes in their organization and operation as a result of reimbursement mandat...