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Washington, DC– President Donald J. Trump has signed into law Congressman Brett Guthrie’s (KY-02) health care bill to modernize state Medicaid programs and help those who rely on in-home health services (H.R. 6042).

In 2016, Guthrie worked to include language in the comprehensive 21^st Century Cures Act that requires state Medicaid programs to adopt electronic visit verification (EVV) systems to keep track of in-home visits for vulnerable Medicaid patients. Many disabled or elderly Medicaid patients rely on these in-home visits for their health care, but the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General found that many of the state in-home visit programs were wasting taxpayer money and endangering some of Medicaid’s most vulnerable patients.

After hearing from state Medicaid programs and other stakeholders that more time was needed to properly implement the EVV systems, Guthrie introduced H.R. 6042 this year to give states more time and flexibility to do so. Guthrie’s bill ensures that Medicaid patients will still be protected without adding further layers of government bureaucracy so that fraud and abuse can be weeded out of the system.

Guthrie introduced this legislation in June with Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Congressman James Langevin (D-RI). It passed the House on June 19, 2018, and was passed in the Senate on July 17, 2018. President Trump signed the bill into law yesterday.

“Many of our most vulnerable Medicaid patients rely on home health visits for their health care services, but sadly, fraud and abuse in the system have prevented some of these patients from receiving proper care,” said Guthrie. “My bill will help to make sure EVV systems are implemented in a way that these patients can get the care they need. I want to thank Congresswoman DeGette, Congressman Langevin, and Senator Portman for working with me to address this issue, and I want to especially thank President Trump for signing this commonsense bill into law.” 

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