Hospice Law

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On August 6, 2019, CMS finalized its 2020 hospice rule, including adopting, without substantial modification, two controversial and material changes to the hospice benefit:

  • Rebasing payment rates to shift about $500 million from routine care to enhanced levels of care including general inpatient, continuous, and respite care.
  • Adopting a requirement that, upon request (either at admission or later), hospices disclose in an extensive written addendum to patients (and other health care providers) any care that would be deemed unrelated to hospice care.

We reviewed these proposals in detail in prior blogs posts on rebasing and unrelated care disclosures; and, we submitted these comments to CMS.  In this blog, we will note the changes that CMS did make to these proposals and note some of the potential effects.Continue Reading CMS Finalizes 2020 Hospice Rule: Big Changes Coming

(as first posted in the Hospice Log Blog on April 12, 2018)

This year CMS is rolling out two new programs aimed, finally, at helping to settle certain types of pending provider reimbursement appeals. The programs are the Low Volume Appeals Initiative and Settlement Conference Facilitation.

As pointed out on the Hospice Law Blog before, CMS’ longstanding policy of refusing to negotiate overpayment findings has been a significant factor in clogging the appeals system. With no settlement options, each case must be decided on its merits, imposing a huge (indeed unmanageable) burden on the appeals system.
Continue Reading CMS Rolls Out Provider Appeals Settlement Efforts

Traditionally, the cap accounting year has ended October 31, putting the cap accounting year one month off of the Federal government fiscal year.   In May 2015, CMS proposed to adjust the cap accounting year to end September 30 to align with the Federal government fiscal year.  This transition will occur in 2017.

To change the accounting year, CMS will cut short the 2017 cap year, assessing cap for the 2017 cap year across only 11 months from November 2016 through September 2017.Continue Reading Hospice Cap Calculation Changes