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Therapy Cap
In 1997 the Balanced Budget Act established annual per-beneficiary Medicare spending limits, or therapy cap, for outpatient physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech language pathology services covered under Medicare Part B. Facilities affected by the therapy cap include: private practice, physician offices, skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitations agencies, comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facilities, critical access hospitals, and outpatient hospital departments. For 2014, the therapy cap amount is $1920 for physical therapy and speech pathology combined. A separate $1920 is allowed for occupational therapy services. Beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans are not subject to the therapy cap unless the plan chooses to apply the cap. Beginning in 1999, Congress placed repeated moratoria on the Therapy Cap through 2006. In 2006, an exception process was put into place through the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The exception process allowed for addition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balanced Budget Act
The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 () was an omnibus legislative package enacted by the United States Congress, using the budget reconciliation process, and designed to balance the federal budget by 2002. This act was enacted during Bill Clinton's second term as president. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the act was to result in $160 billion in spending reductions between 1998 and 2002. After taking into account an increase in spending on Welfare and Children's Healthcare, the savings totaled $127 billion. Medicare cuts were responsible for $112 billion, and hospital inpatient and outpatient payments covered $44 billion. In order to reduce Medicare spending, the act reduced payments to health service providers. However, some of those changes to payments were reversed by subsequent legislation in 1999 and 2000. Overview The Balanced Budget Act was introduced on June 24, 1997, by Republican Ohio Representative John R. Kasich.Kasich, J. R. (1997, August 05). H.R.20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicare (United States)
Medicare is a government national health insurance program in the United States, begun in 1965 under the Social Security Administration (SSA) and now administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It primarily provides health insurance for Americans aged 65 and older, but also for some younger people with disability status as determined by the SSA, including people with end stage renal disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). In 2018, according to the 2019 Medicare Trustees Report, Medicare provided health insurance for over 59.9 million individuals—more than 52 million people aged 65 and older and about 8 million younger people. According to annual Medicare Trustees reports and research by the government's MedPAC group, Medicare covers about half of healthcare expenses of those enrolled. Enrollees almost always cover most of the remaining costs by taking additional private insurance and/or by joining a public Part C o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Therapy
Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patient education, physical intervention, rehabilitation, disease prevention, and health promotion. Physical therapists are known as physiotherapists in many countries. In addition to clinical practice, other aspects of physical therapist practice include research, education, consultation, and health administration. Physical therapy is provided as a primary care treatment or alongside, or in conjunction with, other medical services. In some jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom, physical therapists have the authority to prescribe medication. Overview Physical therapy addresses the illnesses or injuries that limit a person's abilities to move and perform functional activities in their daily lives. PTs use an individual's history and phys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Occupational Therapy
Occupational therapy (OT) is a global healthcare profession. It involves the use of assessment and intervention to develop, recover, or maintain the meaningful activities, or ''occupations'', of individuals, groups, or communities. The field of OT consists of health care practitioners trained and educated to improve mental and physical performance. Occupational therapists specialize in teaching, educating, and supporting participation in any activity that occupies an individual's time. It is an independent health profession sometimes categorized as an allied health profession and consists of occupational therapists (OTs) and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs). While OTs and OTAs have different roles, they both work with people who want to improve their mental and or physical health, disabilities, injuries, or impairments. The American Occupational Therapy Association defines an occupational therapist as someone who "helps people across their lifespan participate in the th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speech Language Pathology
Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are the same word, e.g., "role" or "hotel"), and using those words in their semantic character as words in the lexicon of a language according to the syntactic constraints that govern lexical words' function in a sentence. In speaking, speakers perform many different intentional speech acts, e.g., informing, declaring, asking, persuading, directing, and can use enunciation, intonation, degrees of loudness, tempo, and other non-representational or paralinguistic aspects of vocalization to convey meaning. In their speech, speakers also unintentionally communicate many aspects of their social position such as sex, age, place of origin (through accent), physical states (alertness and sleepiness, vigor or weakness, health or illness), psychological ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deficit Reduction Act Of 2005
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 is a United States Act of Congress concerning the federal budget that became law in 2006. Legislative history The Senate's version passed after a tie-breaking vote was cast by Vice President Dick Cheney. The bill passed the chamber with all Democrats and five Republicans voting against the bill. The House version passed by a vote of 217-215, with all Democrats, fourteen Republicans, and one Independent voting against. The Senate bill was signed by President George W. Bush on February 8, 2006. Dispute over legal status A dispute arose over whether both houses of Congress had approved the same bill. As argued by Public Citizen in a lawsuit over the Act, the Senate clerk had mistakenly changed a clause related to Medicare reimbursements when transmitting the engrossed bill to the House. So when the House voted to accept the Senate's version of the bill, the House clerk had different text than the Senate had approved. When the bill was returned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bipartisan Budget Act Of 2018
The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 is a federal statute concerning spending and the budget in the United States, that was signed into law by President Donald Trump on February 9, 2018. Delays in the passage of the bill caused a nine-hour funding gap. The bill is the third in a series that increased spending caps originally imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011; the first two were the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 and the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015. Provisions The bill combined several provisions, including: * It included a continuing resolution (with short title Further Extension of Continuing Appropriations Act, 2018) lasting until March 23, 2018. * Spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 were increased for both defense and nondefense spending, although defense spending was increased more. The defense discretionary funding cap was increased by $80 billion in FY2018 and $85 billion in FY 2019, while the non-defense domestic discretionary spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Physical Therapy Association
The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) is a U.S-based individual membership professional organization representing more than 100,000 member physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, and students of physical therapy. The nonprofit association, based in Alexandria, Virginia, seeks to improve the health and quality of life of individuals in society by advancing physical therapist practice, education, and research, and by increasing the awareness and understanding of physical therapy's role in the nation's health care system. APTA annually holds two large conferences and publishes the Physical Therapy Journal, the leading international journal for research in physical therapy and related fields, and PT in Motion, a professional issues magazine providing legislative, health care, human interest, and association news. APTA also advocates on behalf of the profession and for issues which impact the health and well being of society such as funding for health research ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Occupational Therapy Association
The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) is the national professional association established in 1917 to represent the interests and concerns of occupational therapy practitioners and students and improve the quality of occupational therapy services. AOTA membership is approximately 63,000 occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants, and students. The National Society for the Promotion of Occupational Therapy was the founding name of the AOTA. William Rush Denton and Thomas B. Kidner were two notable founders of the original society. AOTA designated April as Occupational Therapy Month. See also * '' American Journal of Occupational Therapy'' published by AOTA since 1947. (American Occupational Therapy Association) * Anna Jean Ayres (1920–1989), a developmental psychologist known for her work in the area of sensory processing disorder Sensory processing disorder (SPD, formerly known as sensory integration dysfunction) is a condition in which mul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Accountability Office
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal government of the United States. It identifies its core "mission values" as: accountability, integrity, and reliability. It is also known as the "congressional watchdog". Powers of GAO The work of the GAO is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is mandated by public laws or committee reports. It also undertakes research under the authority of the Comptroller General. It supports congressional oversight by: * auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively; * investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities; * reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives; * performing policy analyses and outlining options f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Heart Association
The American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that funds cardiovascular medical research, educates consumers on healthy living and fosters appropriate cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability and deaths caused by cardiovascular disease and stroke. Originally formed in New York City in 1924, it is currently headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The American Heart Association is a national voluntary health agency. They are known for publishinguidelineson cardiovascular disease and prevention, standards on basic life support, advanced cardiac life support (ACLS), and pediatric advanced life support (PALS), and in 2014 issued its first guidelines for preventing strokes in women. They are known also for operating a number of highly visible public service campaigns starting in the 1970s, and also operate a number of fundraising events. In 1994, the '' Chronicle of Philanthropy'', an industry publication, released a study that showed the American ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medicare And Medicaid (United States)
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), is a federal agency within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that administers the Medicare program and works in partnership with state governments to administer Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and health insurance portability standards. In addition to these programs, CMS has other responsibilities, including the administrative simplification standards from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), quality standards in long-term care facilities (more commonly referred to as nursing homes) through its survey and certification process, clinical laboratory quality standards under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, and oversight of HealthCare.gov. CMS was previously known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) until 2001. CMS actively inspects and reports on every nursing home in the United States. This includes mainta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
