West Virginia was one of the first states to submit a waiver request and receive approval from the Health Care Financing Administration to implement this program. It was implemented in 1982 and has been renewed three times. Services will be provided to 3,750 individuals statewide during the current state fiscal year. This waiver program has been a safety valve for maintaining the moratorium on the construction of new nursing homes. The cost of services provided in a recipient's own home is less than half the expenditures required if these individuals were in nursing facilities.
Services consist primarily of limited and intermittent skilled nursing and home health aide care.
Some of the state's eighty-eight home health agencies also provide physical, occupational and speech therapies. Program eligibility requires a physician's order and oversight responsibility by a registered nurse who implements and monitors the plan of care. Reimbursement rates vary across the state based upon factors utilized by Medicare to establish rates. Until recently, West Virginia Medicaid paid the same rates as Medicare. Recently the Bureau reduced payments to ten percent less than Medicare rates.