Dallas-based Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) plans to end its home health-care operations in March, according to a notice filed with the Texas Workforce Commission.
The company plans instead to concentrate on its hospice and private-duty nursing service.
In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, VNA President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Carpenter cited the fierce competition with 1,400 for-profit home health agencies in North Texas as the reason for exiting that business line.
The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has recommended a Medicare moratorium on new home health care agencies in Texas.
In an August report, the OIG said nearly 40 percent of the nation’s suspicious billings for home health care originated in Texas. Forty-five percent of the state’s home health agencies (HHAs)—or 1,000 out of 2,212—had questionable billing. The Texas rate was five times greater than the national average, the OIG said.
