On July 31, 2019, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued
a final
rule (CMS-1714-F) that demonstrates continued commitment to strengthening
Medicare by better aligning the hospice payment rates with the costs of
providing care and increasing transparency so patients can make more informed
choices.
This final rule updates the
hospice payment rates, wage index, and cap amount for fiscal year FY2020.
This rule finalizes rebasing of the continuous home care (CHC), general
inpatient care (GIP), and the inpatient respite care (IRC) per diem payment
rates in a budget-neutral manner through a small reduction to the routine home
care (RHC) rates to more accurately align Medicare payments with the costs of
providing care. Additionally, this rule finalizes modifications to the election
statement by requiring hospices, upon request, to furnish an election statement
addendum effective beginning in FY2021. The addendum will list those items,
services, and drugs the hospice has determined to be unrelated to the terminal
illness and related conditions, increasing coverage transparency for
beneficiaries under a hospice election. Finally, CMS will continue its work to
modernize and strengthen Medicare operations through the Hospice Quality
Reporting Program (HQRP).
The hospice payment system
includes a statutory aggregate cap. The aggregate cap limits the overall
payments per patient made to a hospice annually. The final hospice cap amount
for the FY 2020 cap year will be $29,964.78, which is equal to the FY 2019 cap
amount ($29,205.44) updated by the final FY 2020 hospice payment update
percentage of 2.6 percent.
Read the CMS
press release on CMS website.
Members of NHPCO will find a
comprehensive Regulatory Alert and additional resources on
the NHPCO website.
No comments:
Post a Comment