Community Home Health Services Act of 1981

(Reported to Senate from the Committee on Labor and Human Resources with amendment (without written report))

Community Home Health Services Act of 1981 - Amends the Public Health Service Act to authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to public and nonprofit private entities and loans to proprietary entities to meet the initial costs of establishing and operating home health programs. Authorizes such grants and loans to include funds to provide training to professional and paraprofessional personnel to provide home health services. Directs the Secretary to make such grants and loans only in areas without adequate home health services.

Directs the Secretary, in making such grants and loans, to: (1) consider the relative need of a State for services; and (2) give preference to areas with a high percentage of elderly, indigent, or disabled individuals.

Requires a proprietary entity to assure that it: (1) is fiscally sound; (2) is unable to obtain the loan from non-Federal lenders at prevailing interest rates; and (3) will remain fiscally sound during the period of the loan.

Authorizes appropriations for FY 1983 and 1984 for such loans and grants.

Authorizes the Secretary to make grants to public and private entities to assist them in developing appropriate training programs for professional and paraprofessional personnel to provide home health services. Requires that special consideration be given to entites with programs for persons over age 50 who wish to become homemaker-home health aides.

Authorizes appropriations for FY 1983 and 1984 for such training grants.

Directs the Secretary to report to specified congressional committees on: (1) grants and loans made under this Act; (2) home health personnel training standards; (3) the extent to which home health services personnel training costs could be reimbursable under titles XVIII (Medicare) and XIX (Medicaid) of the Social Security Act; and (4) efforts to stem home health services fraud and abuse.

Provides coverage under Medicare for home health services because an individual: (1) is or was confined to home; and (2) needs or needed skilled nursing care on an intermittent bases, physical or speech therapy, homemaker-home health aide services on an intermittent basis, or occupational or respiratory therapy. Declares in the case of the homemaker-home health aide services and occupational or respiratory therapy that such services are covered only if hospitalization would be required in the absence of such services.

Requires a homemaker-home health aide to have a certain amount of training or experience. Requires homemaker-home health aide services to: (1) promote the independence of a beneficiary; and (2) include personal care services, household services, and transportation (but only if the transportation is necessary to provide an item or service that cannot be provided in the home).

Authorizes the Secretary to waive the requirement that home health services must be provided by a home health agency when another entity demonstrates it can substantially comply with the Act.

Provides for payment of 50 percent of the costs of the services of a homemaker-home health aide to individuals who meet specified requirements.

Requires any homemaker-home health aide services paid for under Medicaid to be provided by an aide meeting the training requirements specified under the Medicare plan.

Directs the Secretary to: (1) study and make recommendations to Congress with respect to current and alternative reimbursement methodologies for home health services; and (2) implement cost effective reimbursement methodologies.

Directs the Secretary to develop and carry out demonstration projects testing alternative reimbursement methodologies for home health services and report the findings to Congress.

Directs the Secretary to study and report to Congress concerning: (1) methods to stem fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid home health programs; and (2) the extent to which such methods are applied in stemming such fraud and abuse.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to permit a tax credit of up to $500 to an individual who can claim as a dependent a disabled individual who lives in the taxpayer's home if the disability is long-term and would require institutionalization were home care not available. Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare and submit to Congress a report estimating the total effect on revenues such credit would have.