Over the past several years, home care offices across South Carolina have struggled to stay sustainable due to low state Medicaid reimbursement rates for in-home nursing services. As more and more providers shut their doors, GAO and our advocates continued to fight towards a solution so that South Carolina’s most vulnerable residents could continue to access the skilled care they needed to stay at home.

After aggressive advocacy and a public affairs push throughout 2019, our concerted efforts are beginning to pay off! After more than a decade without a nursing increase, the state recommended a 15% increase, effective July 1, 2020. After further advocacy efforts focused on the urgent need for an immediate increase, including articles profiling affected families in the media, the SC Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) issued the initial 5% increase be effective January 1, 2020. This 5% increase will generate nearly $230,000 in additional annual revenue.

BREAKING: DHHS is committed to including the remaining 10% to be effective July 1, 2020. If the provision is passed into law as planned, then PDN services will see a total 15% increase from 2019 levels (5% increase effective January 1, 2020, and an additional 10% targeted for July 1, 2020), resulting in nearly $690,000 in additional annual revenue.

Further increases are needed to ensure access to care for all vulnerable South Carolinians. These major steps forward would not have been possible without sharing our collective voices to showcase the importance of care in the home care and the need to regularly maintained viable reimbursement rates.

Thank you to all of our South Carolina offices, leadership, clients, and families that shared their stories and advocated for this important increase!