Hospice News

JULY 13, 2022

More than a dozen hospice advocacy groups have called on congressional leadership to intervene in a proposed 2.7% bump in Medicare payments, which they say is insufficient in light of COVID-19 and staffing headwinds. Compensation costs for the health care and social assistance industry rose nearly 4.4

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Hospice News

JUNE 1, 2022

Croix Hospice has acquired Lombard, Ill.-based based Lexington Hospice Care. In addition to a spate of acquisitions, the Minnesota-based hospice provider has launched three de novos thus far in 2022. This follows six new locations they opened in 2021 and seven during 2020. . Financial terms were undisclosed.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Utilization continuous home care has dropped precipitously during the past decade, with labor pressures, regulatory scrutiny and billing challenges as contributing factors. Continuous home care (CHC) represented 0.9% of hospice care days during 2022, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

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Hospice News

MARCH 3, 2023

Nearly all hospices were nonprofit organizations at the time the Medicare benefit was established in 1982, but in terms of sheer numbers the balance has shifted toward for-profits in the intervening years. hospices between 2019 and 2020. Of those, about 73% were for-profit companies, and 24% were nonprofits.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

HCC scores are designed to predict the costs associated with a patient’s care. Patients with lower HCC scores often need hospice care for longer periods of time, though their care needs may be less intensive or complex. Dementia-related illnesses are the fastest growing primary terminal diagnosis among hospice patients.

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Hospice News

APRIL 29, 2022

The Medicare Advantage hospice carve-in has been the focus of much attention among providers, and many are watching closely for the demonstration’s outcomes. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched the MCCM in 2016 to explore the idea of allowing hospice patients to receive concurrent curative care.

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Hospice News

APRIL 23, 2024

We have evidence to show that early cancer palliative care interventions improve outcomes. On the research end of things, the International Neuropalliative Care Society (INPCS) was founded in 2020 to help address these challenges and to bring attention to the specialty.

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Hospice News

MARCH 25, 2024

Arizona-based Stoneridge Hospice launched services in 2020 with an aim to address a swelling aging population’s growing need for end-of-life care. Stoneridge Hospice launched in 2020. My wife was a nurse in emergency medicine for several years, and my niece was a long-time hospice nurse.

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Hospice News

MARCH 14, 2024

In Calendar Year 2021, the share of hospice care days with nurse visits in the last seven days of life rose to 63%, up from 62% year over year, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). Social worker visits in the last days of life also rose to 9% in 2021, up from 7% in 2020.

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Hospice News

MARCH 29, 2023

“For a hospice administrator or executive, you really have to be very focused on your length of stay data,” Young told Hospice News in a recent Elevate podcast episode. Are you in an outlier scenario with your data that Medicare contractors are looking at? Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S.

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Hospice News

MAY 1, 2023

Things improved in 2020, the most recent year for which data are available, but not enough to put them in the black. In its place, the organization made agreements with local hospitals to provide inpatient hospice care in their facilities. Meanwhile, Arkansas Hospice has fared better.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Experience with value-based care Value-based reimbursement is a rising tide, particularly for AccentCare’s diverse business lines. Medicare Advantage and Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) are making big inroads in the home health and palliative care markets, and hospice continues to inch in that direction.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

As hospices prepare for Medicare Advantage, more nonprofits are finding that creating partnerships or entering affiliations will better position themselves for payer negotiations. Nonprofit hospice affiliations have surged in 2022 and 2023. The program also includes components designed to expand access to palliative care.

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Hospice News

JUNE 9, 2023

Increasingly, both policymakers and providers are seeing potential opportunities to reform the Medicare Hospice Benefit, including the prospect of concurrent care. Driving these conversations is the need to lighten the nation’s heavy health care spend, which in 2021 reached $4.3 told Hospice News. “If

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Hospice News

JANUARY 3, 2023

It would have prohibited the establishment of for-profit hospices in New York state and forbid current for-profit operators from increasing capacity. . Data suggest that hospice care is underutilized in New York compared to other states, straining other elements of the health care system,” Hochul wrote in her veto.

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Hospice News

JUNE 16, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) is seeking answers about hospice patients’ access to certain high-cost services. CMS included a series of requests for information (RFIs) in its proposed 2024 hospice payment rule. base rate increase for next year, which some in the hospice community have called inadequate.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 24, 2023

Live discharges can occur for a number of reasons, including the patient or family changing their minds about receiving hospice care, or the patient improves and no longer needs those services. A patient may choose to resume curative treatment, or they might move out of the hospice’s service area. About 15.4% Of those, 5.7%

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Hospice News

MAY 30, 2023

“The scholarship is a dependable way to assist hospice home care aids in furthering their careers, voicing their stories on the importance [of] what caregiving means to them and emphasize the changes that have occurred in their patients’ lives,” Winthorpe said in a statement. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

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NHPCO

DECEMBER 13, 2023

NHPCO Facts and Figures is the leading resource for hospice providers and others interested in understanding the work of the community. The 2023 Facts and Figures report continues to see the impact of COVID-19 on patient care and the effect of the COVID-19 waivers to the traditional delivery of hospice care.

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Hospice News

APRIL 22, 2022

Francis Reflections Lifestage Care recently opened a new inpatient hospice care center inside the Melbourne Regional Medical Center. A swelling demand for hospice in the community spurred the unit’s development. Francis Reflections Melbourne Care Center includes a private bathroom and overnight space for loved ones.

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Hospice News

JULY 8, 2022

Among patients who received inpatient discharge instructions indicating hospice, nearly 1 in 10 did not enroll within 30 days of leaving the hospital, according to recent research from Trella Health. The company used data from the last quarter of 2020 and the third of 2021. This perspective is backed by other research.

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Hospice News

MARCH 7, 2023

“The stairs are steeper in UPIC audits, which I think are some of the most serious and costly audits for hospices to deal with,” Pekarske told Hospice News. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracts UPICs to investigate instances of suspected fraud, waste and abuse. Stakes around UPICs The U.S.

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NHPCO

DECEMBER 15, 2022

(Alexandria, Va) – The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) published the 2022 edition of NHPCO Facts and Figures , an annual report on key data points related to the delivery of hospice care, including information on patient characteristics, location and level of care, Medicare hospice spending, and hospice providers.

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Hospice News

MARCH 11, 2024

Spiritual hospice care providers are an important link to building bridges of access and trust among underserved African American populations. If a hospice provider does have that cultural sensitivity and ability to connect on that spiritual level, then how can they respond to these community’s needs?”

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 8, 2023

This includes the revamping of the hospice survey process and the establishment of a Special Focus Program slated to begin in 2024, to name a few. What we would love for our lawmakers to do is really champion the program as it exists and make sure it’s protected from threats to its payment system,” Baird told Hospice News.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 17, 2023

Earlier in the year, Yonah Klein was appointed director of strategy at Unity Hospice and Palliative Care. Technology a key to growing home-based hospice care, workforce The future of end-of-life care is heading further into the home, according to Klein. Skelly Wingard, became CEO of By the Bay Health in June.

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Hospice News

JUNE 20, 2023

And in 2020, about 54.1% of its Medicare decedents elected hospice care, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization reported. Demographic tailwinds and high utilization rates make Idaho an attractive market for Pennant, which is also based in that state. Census Bureau.

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Hospice News

APRIL 7, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is seeking answers from the hospice community — including some around utilization patterns and non-hospice spending. The recently proposed 2024 hospice payment rule contained a 2.8% This includes items and services covered under Medicare Parts A, B, and D.

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Hospice News

JUNE 27, 2022

Many providers have expanded beyond the traditional business lines of hospice care to reap potential benefits in a value-based payment arena. Carefully navigating payer goals alongside staffing needs are important keys as providers diversify services beyond the hospice scope.

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Hospice News

MARCH 16, 2023

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has once again recommended a 20% cut to the aggregate cap for hospice payments. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) set the 2023 cap at $32,486.92, up from nearly $31,300 per patient for Fiscal Year 2022. During 2020, about 18.6% In 2015, for instance, 12.5%

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Hospice News

JUNE 22, 2023

SEIU analyzed Medicare claims data showing that the average hospice transfer rate among HCA hospital discharges was nearly 40% above the national average in 2021 and represented a 50% growth rate over four years. For one, hospice utilization has been on a steady upswing nationally for several years. told Hospice News.

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Hospice News

JUNE 16, 2022

Hospice provider Complete Oklahoma has acquired a license from Houston-based Avenir Hospice Care, establishing the company’s first foothold in Texas. Hospice utilization among Medicare decedents in Texas runs high, reaching 52.1% that year, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

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Hospice News

JUNE 21, 2023

Longer general inpatient hospice stays and high-cost issues are reasons for the audit, dubbed the “Audit of Selected, High-Risk Medicare Hospice General Inpatient Services,” according to OIG. The audit is among a host of others in the health care space that the agency rolled out this month in its Work Plan initiatives.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 15, 2022

The organization’s other affiliated hospice and palliative care brands include Chapters Health Palliative Care, Good Shepherd Hospice, Hospice of Okeechobee, HPH Hospice and LifePath Hospice. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) direct contracting program. Census Bureau.

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Hospice News

MARCH 1, 2023

KHCH began providing home care services in Warsaw, Indiana, in 1976 before adding hospice care to the mix in 1982. The nonprofit also offers palliative care and has a service region that spans six counties in the area. Hospice utilization among Medicare decedents in Indiana reached a rate of 47.3%

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Hospice News

JANUARY 2, 2023

The possibility exists that hospice care will change more in the next few years than it has during the previous four decades. The Medicare Hospice Benefit turned 40-years-old in 2022, and in that time the program has remained fundamentally unchanged. For one, more people know about hospice. This is down from 51.6%

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Hospice News

JANUARY 19, 2023

Hospice and behavioral health care could increasingly intersect in coming years as demand for specialized care grows. But the prevalence of mental health conditions and related concerns like isolation and substance abuse mean that hospice and behavioral health providers may need to find more ways to integrate their services.

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