US House Passes Important Hospice Bill
The House of Representatives has passed the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (PCHETA). The bill will now move on to the Senate. PCHETA would increase the number …
CMS’ New Rule Reduces Compliance Headaches
This week CMS released Omnibus Burden Reduction (Conditions of Participation) Final Rule. The rule “removes Medicare regulations identified as unnecessary, obsolete, or excessively burdensome on hospitals and other healthcare providers …
CMS Releases New Post-Acute Care and Hospice Utilization and Payment Data
Today, CMS posted the first annual release of the Post-Acute Care and Hospice Utilization and Payment Public Use Files (PAC PUF) with data for 2017. The PAC PUF replaces the …
California Law Targeting Gig Economy Workers Could Hurt Home Health Agencies
California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) passed in the State Senate last week, and is expected to be signed into law. AB5 is intended to ensure that “gig” workers like …
New Details about the HOPE Assessment Tool
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 …
Hospice Provider Preview Reports are Available Now
Hospice provider preview reports and Hospice CAHPS Survey provider preview reports have been updated and are now available. These two separate reports are available in your CASPER non-validation reports folder. …
Valuable Webinars for Hospice Providers from CGS: Stay Ahead of the Curve!
CGS has uploaded recordings of several valuable hospice-related webinars. All hospice providers should take a look at the topics offered and make sure that they’re staying on top of compliance. …
Hospice Compare Quarterly Refresh is Available Now
The August 2019 quarterly Hospice Compare refresh of quality data is now available. It is base on HIS quality measure results from data collected from Q4 2017 to Q3 2018, …
New Primary Care First Webinar is Available from CMS
This week, CMS hosted a webinar that provided more details about Primary Care First. This program is designed to strengthen partnerships between primary care providers and palliative care providers to …
Important Public Reporting Dates for Hospice Providers
CMS has published a list of important dates for hospice providers. This list covers the Hospice Compare refresh schedule, preview periods, freeze dates, as well as data correction deadlines. Key …