Thousands of Seniors Lose Access to Hospital-at-Home Program Due to Federal Shutdown

It’s official: the current federal shutdown is now the second longest in modern U.S. history. Every day, it seems, we hear of some new fright because of lapses in federal funding.

One of these scary things is affecting seniors who’ve chosen to age in place.

The National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) reports that a lapse in funding for medical care has uprooted ailing seniors. Acute Hospital Care at Home, from Medicare, has been interrupted at 320 hospitals nationwide. Thousands of vulnerable seniors now wait in limbo. Some of the seniors who were receiving in-home care under hospital supervision have been pushed back to packed hospitals — just in time for flu season.

A Covid-Era Program That Became a Lifeline

Hospital-supervised, at-home healthcare programs are well known in other countries. In the United States, Acute Hospital Care at Home was adopted when the pandemic created overflows at hospitals, but never placed on a solid financial base.

Over the past five years, more than 300 hospitals in 37 states have started up Acute Hospital Care at Home programs. To make this work, the U.S. government reimbursed medical sites for the extra work they carried out when monitoring older adults remotely. Because other patients could use the beds, enabling thousands of seniors to recover at home was a win-win.

Soon, hospital-overseen home care became part of the raft of services that makes aging in place a real possibility for elders with health challenges.

The program’s means of funding ran out in 2023. It received multiple extensions in funding bills. But the current federal shutdown pushed all of this off the rails.

The impacts have reverberated throughout a whole system of home-based care support. Inbound Health, which provides staffing for hospital-at-home and remote monitoring, is looking at having to lay people off, according to its CEO.

Why Wouldn’t This Program Be Permanently Funded?

To date, Acute Hospital Care at Home has helped about 4,000 seniors live safely in their homes. It has cut down the number of people waiting in line to get hospital care. Participants experience longer lives, and fewer moves to skilled nursing units. When their healthcare is overseen at home, they are safer from the risk of falls and other accidents that can occur when having to move into unfamiliar settings for treatment. Relatives and caregivers can believe that home really is a place where medical care works.

With outcomes like these, who wouldn’t want to fund Acute Hospital Care at Home? In July, Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican at the helm of the House Ways and Means Committee’s health panel, introduced a bipartisan bill to extend Acute Hospital Care at Home for five years. The problem is the lack of any such bill in the U.S. Senate.

Healthcare groups such as Moving Health Home, the American Telemedicine Association, and the Alliance for Connected Care are all saying that the program needs long-term funding. If this program were permanently funded, hospitals would be developing and strengthening home hospital care for seniors, not suspending it.

Addressing Two Pressing Needs: Healthcare, and Real Estate  

“Hospitals are facing a similar inventory crunch as the housing market,” explains the National Association of REALTORS®. There’s a shortage of hospital rooms, and a shortage of homes.

In short, the country is not able to keep up with the demand for senior housing. Hospital care at home offers essential services at a time when assisted living and continuing care are becoming harder to find. Sustaining the Acute Hospital Care at Home program helps address two critical needs at once. It should be a national priority.