WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate investigators are accusing three of the nation's biggest home care providers of deliberately increasing their visits to patients to get higher payments from the government's Medicare program.

A report released Monday by the Senate Finance committee lays out more than a half-dozen strategies used by executives at Amedisys, LHC Group and Gentiva to increase home care, even when patients may not have required extra attention. Staffers for Senators Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, reviewed internal documents by the companies.

"Elderly patients in the Medicare system should not be used as pawns to increase a company's profits," Baucus said in a statement. "Especially in these tough economic times, taxpayers simply cannot afford for their dollars to be wasted on unnecessary care."