Registration for IDC19 is Now Open

NHPCO will host the 2019 Interdisciplinary Conference on November 4 – 6 in Orlando, Florida. Preconference offerings are on November 2 and 3.

Join hospice and palliative care professionals from across the country colleagues to experience a unique blend of keynotes, educational sessions, preconference learning and networking opportunities grounded in the philosophy of the interdisciplinary team. Engage with colleagues from across the country as you learn about new approaches, successful models and innovations that will advance your professional skill set and help strengthen your organization.

Who should attend? Professionals in the hospice and palliative care field and related stakeholders in the following disciplines and roles: advanced nurse practitioner, bereavement, nurse, palliative care, pediatrics, physician, quality, regulatory and compliance, social work, spiritual care.

IDC19 educational session tracks:

• Community-Based Palliative Care
• Interdisciplinary Team Leadership
• Medical Care
• Pediatrics
• Quality
• Regulatory
• Supportive Care

Visit the NHPCO website to learn more about IDC19 and to register – register by September 15, 2019 to catch the early-bird rate!

FY2020 Hospice Wage Index Final Rule

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.

LAC 2020 Call for Proposals is Open

You are invited to lead the conversation around innovation and change by submitting a session proposal. 

The Conference Planning Committee for NHPCO’s 2020 LAC seeks proposals that are highly interactive and provide participants with relevant content and practical tools that they can apply in their own work. Sessions should be designed to engage CEOs, administrators, directors and other leaders working to promote advancement of hospice and palliative care and plan its future development. 

Help shape the future of hospice and palliative care innovation next March by proposing an idea for a session. Share your work in one or more areas of emphasis:

·         Advocacy

·         Clinical and Operations Management;

·         Emerging Markets and Partnership Opportunities;

·         Engagement and Marketing

·         Finance

·         Fund Development

·         Leadership

·         Palliative Care

·         Quality

·         Regulatory

·         Staff Development/Excellence

Review the Call for Proposals tips and suggestions before you submit online. 

Find out more and submit your proposal today.

Questions? education@nhpco.org
Submission deadline: August 7, 2019.

NHPCO Responds to New OIG Reports

On July 9, 2019, the Office of the Inspector General released two new reports following its investigation into hospice care in the U.S.  To briefly summarize, the OIG found that 20 percent of hospices have deficiencies that put patients at risk and the OIG is suggesting that among its recommendations that deficiency data be shared more broadly to help improve quality of care. 

News stories prompted by the OIG reports have been carried by The Washington Post, NBC News, and NPR. The journalists writing some of these news stories have shared selected patient stories based on their own investigation. These patient stories are difficult to read and reflect badly on hospice.  It is likely that other media outlets will carry these articles or generate additional news coverage on this topic.

Many of the issues brought up in the new reports have been discussed in previous OIG documents going back to 2005. 

NHPCO President and CEO Edo Banach released some key messages, most notably:

NHPCO welcomes the opportunity to shed a light on high quality providers as well as those that fall short in providing appropriate care. NHPCO will continue to partner with government agencies to strengthen and make more transparent the tools and data needed to empower consumers when they are choosing a quality hospice program. NHPCO will also continue to provide tools and resources to help our members to meet and exceed quality benchmarks.

Read the complete NHPCO response online.

Free APM Webinar offered by National Coalition

The National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care will be presenting a free webinar, New Medicare Alternative Payment Models: Options and Opportunities for Hospices and Palliative Care Programs. There are limited spaces available for the webinar offered on Thursday, July 25, 2019 from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. ET, so those interested should register as soon as possible. (Please note, this is a new date for this program.)

The program is designed to help prepare the U.S. hospice provider community for the new payment models that were announced in April and are coming. This webinar will be helpful to hospice and palliative program managers and leaders in all disciplines and others interested in the new Medicare payment options.

This webinar will help you:

• Describe how participation and payment would work in these voluntary models, available in 26 geographic regions across the country;
• Consider the pros and cons of these new payment models; and,
• Determine whether to apply to participate on your own and/or whether to work with potential collaborators in your local area, by evaluating the program requirements.

Register while space is available for New Medicare Alternative Payment Models: Options and Opportunities for Hospices and Palliative Care Programs.

NDS – Send us Your Data!

Now through July 26, you have the opportunity to participate in the NHPCO’s National Data Set.

You may ask---what’s that?  Well, with all the data collected by CMS and other industry sources, there is still a gap in information that is useful for benchmarking your staffing, budgets, and supporting your strategic goals.  The NDS serves as a central collection point for some of this key data and brings together provider experience from across the industry.
 
By participating, you have access to this industry wide data so that you can benchmark yourself against other providers of similar sizes and geography.  This can be a gold-mine to many providers to help set and confirm staffing levels, budgets, influence delivery of care changes, and shape the goals of your Hospice and its services.  For NHPCO, we use this information to help us derive insights coupled with other data to influence lawmakers and policy that positively impacts our industry so it’s a win: win scenario.

Don’t just take our word for it:

Leanne Burrack, vice president from UnityPoint Hospice, says that her organization often depends on the NDS to benchmark operations.  They have used NDS related data and insights to help create staffing guidelines, inform budget projections, and influence on-going hiring and growth expectations across all disciplines.

Jennifer Kennedy, NHPCO’s senior director, regulatory and quality, uses the NDS results coupled with other data sources and her vast experience to create tools for providers such as NHPCO’s Staffing Guidelines which is designed to help providers develop staffing levels for quality patient/family care delivery.

Examples like these highlights how useful it is to have industry data to help us all work smarter, not just harder.  We need your help, please visit our NDS website to learn more about the specific questions, raffled prizes for participation, and/or to access the survey’s link.

By Don Sievert
NHPCO Senior Director, Decision Support

Contribute to The Hospice Music Project

Joy in a Teardrop: The Hospice Music Project was initiated with the creation of a song, Joy in a Teardrop, which was written as part of a songwriting workshop at NHPCO’s Interdisciplinary Conference in November 2018 in New Orleans. Led by GRAMMY award winning songwriter Tricia Walker and John Mulder, hospice professionals shared reflections of their work and put words to the many emotions experienced in caring for those at life’s end. Walker and Mulder shaped those words and added music to bring Joy in a Teardrop to life.

Spurred on by the hospice community’s positive response to Joy in a Teardrop, NHPCO is launching a  new program, Joy in a Teardrop: The Hospice Music Project, which will result in a full album of songs that reflect the experience of hospice professionals in the work that they do – the joys, sorrows, difficult and challenging times, and even the lighthearted and humorous moments that are a part of everyday end-of-life experiences.

Joy in a Teardrop: The Hospice Music Project, will be led by Tricia Walker and John Mulder, they will be assisted by other highly decorated songwriters, including Beth Nielsen Chapman and Marcus Hummon. These writers will take the thoughts and ideas provided by hospice and palliative care professionals and craft original songs, just as Walker and Mulder did with the original song.

NHPCO invites you to share your ideas with us – perhaps just a word or phrase, maybe a concept or thought, or even a meaningful story or vignette. It may be your experience, the experience of a patient or family, or something that was shared by a coworker.  They can be incomplete and scattered thoughts – we’d just like your reflections on this work that we all cherish.

You can submit your ideas at music@nhpco.org.  If you have any questions about the project, you can also submit those to the same address, and we’ll respond to you.