Lawsuit Filed on Hospice Special Focus Program
(Jan. 21, 2025) There is continued attention and action around the Hospice Special Focus Program (SFP), a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) initiative responsible for ensuring hospice quality improvement through increased health and safety oversight.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, LeadingAge National urged revisions to the problematic algorithm CMS uses to determine SFP participants, and, along with multiple members of Congress, it expressed concerns about publishing the candidate list of hospices for the program, recommending that CMS not make public the latter due to the potential for reputational harm. On Dec. 20th, CMS posted the first list of 50 hospices identified under the program.
A lawsuit was filed on Jan. 16th in the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, by Houston Hospice, one of the programs on the SFP candidate list; the Texas Association for Home Care and Hospice; the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care; the Association for Home Care and Hospice Care of North Carolina; and the South Carolina Home Care and Hospice Association.
LeadingAge National will review the contents of the suit carefully and provide an analysis for members. It issued a statement to the media about the flaws in the SFP. It also has a new serial post that specifically tracks advocacy around this program and information about the program, including CMS’s release of the SFP candidate list.
Please let us know if you have any questions in the meantime, and bookmark the serial post for all the latest updates on this topic.
Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871