Fighting Fraud Without Losing Access in Care at Home

Jennifer Sheets (0:00)

Care at Home is navigating one of the most consequential policy stretches in recent memory. CMS is weighing how to root out fraud without cutting off access to care. A new payment rule is reshaping the math providers run on every single day, and Congress is deciding whether it hears from our field as one voice or a hundred competing ones. Every one of these decisions will land directly on patients and families in their own homes. Today, I'm sitting down with someone who spent his career working exactly these fault lines between policy and patient care. From helping build the Bipartisan Policy Center to co-authoring provisions that became part of the Affordable Care Act, to now leading policy and government affairs for one of the largest integrated home-based care providers in the country. We're going to talk about what a smart, data-driven program integrity response looks like. What the 2027 home health role means for providers already stretched then. And why unity across our field matters more right now than maybe ever before.

This is Coming Home, and I'm Jennifer Sheets.

My guest today is Cam Lynch, Chief Government Affairs and Policy Officer at Compassus. Cam brings a career worth of policy chops to this conversation. From his work helping stand up the Bipartisan Policy Center, to co-authoring the language that became part of the Affordable Care Act, to leading global policy and communications for Fresenius.

Now he's applying all of that experience to hospice, palliative care and home health at Compassus, one of the largest integrated home-based care providers in the country. Cam, welcome to Coming Home. All right. So Compassus operates as one of the countries leading integrated home-based care providers spanning hospice, palliative care and home care across communities nationwide. Can you give listeners a sense of the scope of what Compassus is doing right now and the kinds of patients and families that you're serving?

Cam Lynch (2:15)

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. So you mentioned the four lines in which we operate home health, hospice, palliative care, and infusion. And we operate in 33 states.

We serve about 180,000 patients a year, and we've got about 11,000 teammates out there working. So obviously what we believe is that the home is the best place of care for the patients who need it. And it's really great for the families as well. It's cheaper for the federal government and for the families, and helps people not have to go on long appointment drives because they meet them in the home. So we're very excited about those four different ways we serve the patient. And we really think the most important thing is the care that's provided and how it's provided. So it's an interesting time to be in the space because obviously you've got an aging population and a lot of people want to be cared for at home. And so we continue to be excited about the patients we serve. And a special shout out to our employees who go into people's homes every day, which is not an easy thing, as you know very well.

Jennifer Sheets (3:18)

Yeah, it's not. It's a very different world than in the hospital when you have that big, beautiful button you can push on 30 people.

Cam Lynch (3:24)

Yes, exactly, yes.

Jennifer Sheets (3:26)

You bring deep expertise and a very background to this role, having helped build the Bipartisan Policy Center, you co-authored policy that became part of the Affordable Care Act, and you've navigated complex policy and communications environments at the global level for Cineas. What drew you to Compassus and to the care at home community specifically, and then also what does that policy expertise tell you about that particular moment?

Cam Lynch (3:54)

What drew me to the home space was, frankly, we all have family members or friends and family members who have received home care, and it was exciting for me because I'd heard a lot of good stories, but I'd also heard some bad stories.

So I wanted to come work with people who really cared about it and got it right. The thing that's so important about public policy, it's sometimes hard to connect public policy to what's going on in someone's house while they're receiving essential care. But as you know, the vast majority of our patients are Medicare patients. Those rates, not just the rates, but the quality standards, the what you can do when you go into the home, what the nurse or the tech can do, those are all set by folks in Washington. So my whole career, 28 years in Washington has been focused on health care policy. So I touched all of it when I worked on Capitol Hill, I did a little bit of everything, but the home space is somewhere where I feel particularly comfortable because there is so much Medicare and Medicaid involvement, especially with hospice and home care as well.