Focus Group Opportunity for Hospice Providers

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has contracted with Abt Associates, Inc. to recruit experienced hospice providers and clinical staff to participate in virtual focus groups to provide input on the hospice patient assessment instrument. The focus groups will be conducted via webinar using the WebEx platform.

CMS's new hospice instrument will apply a patient-centered approach that supports patient choice and incorporates the full hospice team. At a minimum, the data from the assessment instrument will be used for care planning and outcome quality measures. Therefore, participation in the focus groups is an integral part of the new assessment instrument development. The feedback from these groups will inform CMS's recommendations as part of the steps to prepare for alpha testing of the hospice patient assessment instrument in Calendar Year (CY) 2020.

All interested participants with experience with the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (QRP) or collecting patient-level data will be considered based on their hospice role, knowledge, and experience with the Hospice QRP or completing patient assessments. Selection will take into account hospice type and location to ensure a nationally balanced representation of diverse hospices.

We urge LeadingAge NY members to participate. Please see the Recruitment Announcement, which includes the link for completing the Focus Group Application. This is also posted in the downloads section of the Hospice QRP Provider Engagement Opportunities webpage here. Please complete the Focus Group Application by Aug. 26, 2019.

If you have general questions about the focus groups and would like to contact CMS, please email Cindy Massuda, CMS’s Hospice QRP Coordinator, at Cindy.Massuda@cms.hhs.gov.

Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871