As required in the 2020 Hospice Final Rule, CMS is moving forward with their development of a new patient assessment tool called HOPE (Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation).
The two primary objectives of HOPE are to:
- Provide quality data for HQRP requirements through standardized data collection.
- Provide additional clinical data that could inform future payment refinements.
HOPE will assess patients in real-time, based on interactions with the patient. These assessments will support quality improvement activities and calculate outcome with other types of quality measures. CMS alleges that HOPE will do this in a way that does not increase the compliance burden on providers.
Yesterday, CMS held an Open Door Forum about their progress on the new assessment tool. Click here to view the slides from the presentation. If you would like to know more, click here to visit CMS’ HOPE page.