MedPAC has released its annual data book on Medicare spending, including profit-margin information often cited by CMS and others in justifying payment cuts for home health services.
 
Industry leaders argue that the data does not paint a full picture of the impact of payment cuts, including underpayments for services provided through Medicaid and Medicare Advantage.
 
The MedPAC data, released in July 2024, shows that Medicare margins for freestanding home health agencies was at 22.1% in 2022, down from 24.9% in 2021. The data is a few years old because it is based on Medicare Cost Report files from CMS.
 
The profit margin changes little based on urban or rural geography, but there are sharper differences between for-profit and nonprofit agencies and among agencies with different patient volumes.
 
See the data below