Proposed Hospice FY 2022 Wage Index Rule Released
The Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Proposed Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update, Hospice Conditions of Participation Updates, Hospice and Home Health Quality Reporting Program Requirements was released on April 9th. The proposed increase to the hospice payment rate is 2.3 percent ($530 million in increased payment to hospice providers), and there are proposed changes to the hospice program that include permanency of certain 1135 waivers, changes to the proposed labor shares of the hospice payment rates, clarifications and conforming regulation text changes related to the hospice election statement addendum, and asks for comments on hospice utilization and spending patterns.
Additionally, the rule proposes to update the Hospice Quality Reporting Program by adding the claims-based Hospice Care Index and the Hospice Visits in the Last Seven Days of Life Measure for public reporting and removing seven Hospice Item Set (HIS) measures because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) sees them as duplicative of other measures being reported. It also contains more information on the development of the Hospice Outcome and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) assessment instrument and has a proposal related to the Home Health Quality Reporting Program so that timely comments can be received prior to implementation.
The proposed rule can be found here, and LeadingAge National's summary of the rule is here. Comments are due to CMS by June 7th, and LeadingAge National will be organizing opportunities for members to provide feedback. LeadingAge NY will be joining this effort, so please feel free to provide feedback we can contribute.
Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org, 518-929-9342