Hospice News

JANUARY 12, 2024

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has voted to recommend a freeze on hospice payment increases starting in 2025. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The 2021 aggregated Medicare hospice margin was 13.3%, according to MedPAC.

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Hospice News

APRIL 8, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) 2025 proposed hospice rule contained requests for information (RFIs) that could signal changes in the agency’s thinking on key issues. Through RFIs, CMS tries to take the pulse of providers’ positions on certain questions that could impact the Medicare Hospice Benefit.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized its 2024 home health rule, including the implementation of a hospice Special Focus Program (SFP). The rule also finalizes the proposed “36-month”rule for hospice providers.

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Hospice News

MARCH 23, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is extending the value-based insurance design demonstration for calendar years 2025 to 2030, including the hospice component. The hospice component of VBID, also called the MA carve-in, launched in 2021 and was originally slated to complete after four years.

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Hospice News

AUGUST 21, 2023

Evolving network adequacy requirements within the value-based insurance design (VBID) model demonstration have some hospices concerned that Medicare Advantage payers may have narrowed views on reimbursement and access. And that’s a big concern when it comes to hospice care.” This year the U.S.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 9, 2022

The hospice component of the value-based insurance design (VBID) model will begin its third year on Jan. Often called the MA hospice carve-in , the voluntary demonstration is designed to assess payer and provider performance related to hospice within Medicare Advantage (MA). We need to be in-network.”.

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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

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

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

(NASDAQ: PNTG) has acquired Guardian Hospice and Guardian Hospice of Oklahoma for an undisclosed amount. Guardian Hospice of Oklahoma received Medicare certification in 2015 and has since grown its presence in the state and across Texas. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

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Hospice News

JULY 17, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is conducting a small pilot program for post-payment reviews of hospice stays that exceed 90 days. CMS internal data has identified a potential area of vulnerability beginning with the second benefit period, or 91st day in hospice,” Noridian indicated in an announcement.

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Hospice News

MAY 13, 2024

Research trends can help hospice providers improve their understanding around the impacts of their services and where quality gaps may exist. Their research found that coordinated telehealth visits with hospice interdisciplinary staff helped ease care transitions among young adults and children.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 4, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The four lawmakers contend that the SFP, as currently designed, would not adequately identify poor performing hospices in need of the program. Four members of Congress led by Reps. Each of these organizations has also expressed support for the SFP as a concept.

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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% In Fiscal Year 2022, routine home care accounted for 98.8%

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 12, 2023

Hospice News sat down with providers, advocacy groups, legal experts and other stakeholders to uncover the most significant hospice regulatory trends from this year and their anticipated impacts heading into 2024 and beyond. Many established services for the purpose of selling the license at a profit or defrauding Medicare.

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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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Home Care Pulse

JULY 26, 2022

– July 2021: What is the Hospice Care Index? – What did this level of oversight tell hospice agencies? Article Contents: July 2021: What is the Hospice Care Index? What did this level of oversight tell hospice agencies? July 2021: What is the Hospice Care Index?

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023

Guaranteed’s New SVP of Growth, Strategy Tech-enabled hospice startup Guaranteed has named Ryan Malone as its new senior vice president of growth and strategy. Before joining Guaranteed, Malone served as vice president of sales and partnerships at mental health provider Thriveworks since 2021. Carl Derrick as medical director.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 25, 2023

The nonprofit hospice provider’s subsidiary — Care Guide Partners — has applied to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for a PACE license, according to CEO David Cook. Before coming to Hosparus in 2021, Cook led an organization in North Carolina that offered both hospice and PACE. “I

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Hospice News

AUGUST 8, 2023

Hospices seeking to gauge the potential impact of new regulatory actions in the space can look to their counterparts in the home health field. CMS is no doubt hoping for similar results for the Medicare Hospice Benefit. In that time frame, Nevada saw 56 newly certified hospices, and 369 emerged in Texas.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 13, 2022

A coalition of hospice industry organizations recently urged the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to examine the issue and to consider actions like targeted moratoria on licenses. The agency will also implement a hospice program complaint hotline through which the public can report issues to CMS.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 20, 2023

Eden Health is a subsidiary of Washington-based EmpRes Healthcare, which provides management and consulting services to rehabilitation and post-acute care centers, assisted and independent living communities and home health, home care, palliative care and hospice agencies in nine Western states.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 17, 2022

As with other demographic groups, hospice utilization among Hispanic, Latino and Latinx populations is low in comparison to Caucasians. Latino patients are more likely to die without receiving hospice care or even information about these services, the report indicated. “We Hispanics made up 6.7%

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 8, 2022

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) recently awarded the company a certificate of need (CON) to begin offering hospice services in that region. The company already offers home care services in that county. We provide the full scope of hospice care. Hernando-Pasco Hospice, Inc.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

While the hospice community has generally embraced the concept of a Special Focus Program (SFP) to address quality concerns, some are troubled by the government’ methodology for identifying providers. The program was among the requirements established by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021.

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Hospice News

AUGUST 10, 2023

NASDAQ: AVAH) was a company mostly focused on in-home care to pediatric populations. When the Atlanta-based provider filed to go public in April 2021, however, it revealed ambitious plans to expand into the arenas of Medicare-certified home health and hospice care. “We

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Hospice News

APRIL 21, 2022

Kindred is the largest provider of home health services by market share in the United States and the second-largest hospice provider, according to LexisNexis. . Value-Based care a prime mover. The company’s strategy for the Kindred at Home assets has several advantages.

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NHPCO

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Nonetheless, CMS has opted to ignore our feedback, along with concerns from congressional leaders dating as far back as 2021. To be clear: our associations support the spirit and intent of the SFP, which, in keeping with the HOSPICE Act passed in 2020, aims to improve poor performing hospices.

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Hospice News

MAY 26, 2022

Above & Beyond has provided home health and hospice care across eastern Iowa since 2004. Its home care services include nursing, and physical occupational and speech therapies, among others. Hospice utilization runs high in Iowa compared to other states.

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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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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

. — Nick Westfall, CEO, VITAS Healthcare Earlier access and longer hospice stays can reduce health care costs in the last year of life by as much as 11%, a recent joint report found from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and NORC at the University of Chicago.

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Hospice News

MARCH 20, 2023

.” – Jim Palazzo, CEO, Transitions Care “I was interested in PACE services just because of the similarity that it has to hospice care and the need that it fills, often for some of the poor folks in a community. Because most of the individuals accessing PACE are going to be Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.

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Hospice News

MAY 7, 2024

Beginning in 2021, numerous reports emerged of unethical or illegal practices among hundreds of newly licensed hospices, particularly among new companies popping up in California, Texas, Nevada and Arizona. Thus far, California is the only state to take action on the issue, including a moratorium on hospice licensing.

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Hospice News

MARCH 21, 2024

Members of Congress are raising questions about the continued Medicare certification for new hospices in areas rife with fraud. Some of these providers engaged in referral kickback schemes, enrolled patients who were not eligible for hospice and lied to them about being terminally ill. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.)

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Hospice Law Blog

AUGUST 12, 2019

Adopting a requirement that, upon request (either at admission or later), hospices disclose in an extensive written addendum to patients (and other health care providers) any care that would be deemed unrelated to hospice care. This reduction, however, is substantially offset by a 2.6% payment increase this year.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 19, 2022

During late 2021 and 2022, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed new approaches for enforcing hospice regulations that will become effective on Jan. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) developed new approaches for enforcing hospice regulations that will become effective on Jan.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 2, 2022

Even when a hospice plays by the rules, death does not. When the Medicare Hospice Benefit became a permanent program in 1982, its parameters were designed specifically for cancer patients. Longer lengths of stay do generate higher margins , the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) reported in 2019. population.

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