Hospice News

MARCH 4, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will end the hospice component of the value-based insurance design model (VBID) as of Dec. Often called the “hospice carve-in,” the program was designed to test coverage of hospice care through Medicare Advantage, in addition to some coverage of palliative care and transitional care.

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Hospice News

JULY 26, 2024

A hospice physician in California is facing up to a decade in prison after pleading guilty for their involvement in a kickback fraud scheme that bilked Medicare of nearly $30 million. Contreras defrauded Medicare of nearly $4 million in false and fraudulent hospice claims from July 2016 to February 2019, according to the plea agreement.

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AlayaCare

NOVEMBER 5, 2018

Many of these issues are ongoing and will continue to affect the landscape into 2019 and beyond. Integration of Clinical Care with Personal Care A second trend for 2019 is the growing realization that, to improve patient outcomes, personal care is often as important as clinical care. In the U.S., This trend is taking a few forms.

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NHPCO

MARCH 21, 2023

For Immediate Release March 22, 2023 New Research Shows Hospice Care Reduces Medicare Costs Hospice Care Contributed to $3.5 billion in savings for Medicare in 2019, while providing multiple benefits to patients, families, and caregivers. In other words, earlier enrollment in hospice reduces Medicare spending even further.

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Hospice News

JUNE 21, 2022

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, calling for a payment model demonstration designed to support greater access to palliative care. Many hospices are currently participating in other CMMI programs, including the value-based insurance design demonstration (Medicare Advantage carve-in.

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NHPCO

JULY 28, 2023

For Immediate Release July 28, 2023 New Research Shows Hospice Produces Better Outcomes, Lower Medicare Costs (Washington, D.C. billion in Medicare savings in 2019, while also providing multiple benefits to patients, families, and caregivers. In other words, earlier enrollment in hospice reduces Medicare spending even further.

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Hospice News

MARCH 3, 2023

RAND researchers analyzed Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Survey data from 653,208 caregivers whose family members received care from 3,107 hospices between April 2017 and March 2019. hospices between 2019 and 2020. Of those, about 73% were for-profit companies, and 24% were nonprofits.

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Hospice News

MAY 27, 2022

These include the audit system created by Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014, and the two-tiered reimbursement for routine home care that reduced payment amounts after 60 days. Designed to prevent misuse of the Medicare Hospice Benefit, these efforts may have had unintended consequences.

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Hospice News

MAY 17, 2024

The court also ordered Akula to repay $42 million in fraudulent Medicare billing claims made between January 2013 and December 2019, which totaled roughly $84 million during that six-year span. The charges included fraudulent claims for physician services and home visits, as well as manipulation of Medicare billing codes.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 10, 2024

Muir joined the organization in 2019 as its chief of clinical innovations. He first joined that company as its executive vice president of clinical services and CMO in 2002 while holding a similar role at Hospice of the Piedmont from 2019 to 2020. Both King and McDaniel also join the organization’s leadership council.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 12, 2023

From 2016 through 2019, the average share was 17.5%. Spending by Medicare, hospice’s principal payer, accounted for 21% of the total national expenditures, hitting $944.3 Growth in Medicare spending also dropped to 5.9% Economic patterns also reflect the growing presence of Medicare Advantage. billion in 2022.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

During the past decade, Medicare beneficiaries with dementia who utilized hospice had lower overall health care costs than those who did not, according to the Health Affairs study. are increasingly concerned that greater use of the Medicare hospice benefit by people with dementia is driving up costs,” researchers wrote in the study.

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Hospice News

MAY 8, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), they would not be able to recertify via telehealth. Also, clinicians who are not enrolled in Medicare or who validly opted out would likewise be prohibited. Researchers conducted 88 concurrent in-person and telehealth visits between June and November 2019.

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Hospice News

JULY 16, 2024

Roughly 73,963 Medicare decedents utilized hospice in Pennsylvania in 2021, which falls in the middle in utilization among the states, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & medicaid Services (CMS). Hospice utilization ran highest in California and Florida that year at 156,000 and 154,521 decedents, respectively.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

million Medicare decedents who died in 2019. Nearly half (43%) of the more than 2 million Medicare decedents included in the research were diagnosed with dementia during their lifetime. million Medicare decedents who utilized hospice in 2019, about 591,272 had dementia, the research found. utilized hospice.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized its 2024 home health rule, including the implementation of a hospice Special Focus Program (SFP). The final rule forbids any change in majority ownership during the 36 months after initial Medicare enrollment, including acquisitions, stock transactions or mergers.

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Hospice News

JUNE 8, 2023

senators have introduced a bipartisan bill that would direct the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) to develop a palliative care-specific payment model demonstration. Additionally, some Medicare Advantage plans offer palliative care as a supplemental benefit. The bill’s sponsors include Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.),

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 6, 2024

Hospices flagged by the SFP also will be surveyed every six months rather than the current three-year cycle and could face monetary penalties or expulsion from the Medicare program. This was in response to July 2019 reports on hospice quality from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in the U.S.

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Hospice News

JULY 21, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracts with RACs to conduct post-payment reviews designed to recover any funds that may have been overspent. Medicare hospice expenditures rise by about $1 billion annually, according to CMS. In 2019, RAC audits led to total corrected underpayments in excess of $18.3

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 14, 2022

trillion in 2021, according to a new analysis from the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). share in 2019. Medicare spending, for example, accounted for 21% of total national health care expenditures and reached $900.8 in 2020, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 8, 2024

Private equity transactions represented half of all home health and hospice deals in 2018 and 2019, resulting in a 300% increase in patients enrolled under PE-backed providers, according to research published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Care Compare site.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 2, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has been gradually implementing changes to the hospice survey process and enforcement remedies, including civil monetary penalties in some instances. These actions were designed to strengthen regulatory oversight of providers in the wake of two July 2019 reports from the U.S.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 21, 2023

Formerly known as Catskills Area Hospice and Palliative Care, the organization rebranded as Helios in 2019. In 2021, 48,644 Medicare beneficiaries in New York state elected the hospice benefit, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Lawmakers have an essential role in ensuring the viability of the Medicare Hospice Benefit, according to Davis Baird, director for government affairs for hospice at the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC). So, having those conversations about what those improvements would be is going to be an important exercise in 2024.”

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Hospice News

APRIL 18, 2024

million beneficiaries with continuous enrollment in traditional Medicare who received care across 576 health systems between 2019 and 2021–2022. A recent Health Affairs study has dug into the quality and cost impacts of telehealth utilization during the pandemic. Researchers examined more than 5.5

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

The Medicare Hospice Benefit initially was designed around the needs of cancer patients, but now the number of patients with other diagnoses is growing — some with less predictable disease patterns. of hospice enrollees in 2019, up from 9% in 2002, according to the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

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Hospice News

MARCH 24, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) decision to extend the value-based insurance design (VBID) model through 2030: patients’ social needs, health equity and improved care coordination. This includes the hospice benefit component, often called the Medicare Advantage carve-in, CMS confirmed.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 2, 2022

When the Medicare Hospice Benefit became a permanent program in 1982, its parameters were designed specifically for cancer patients. of hospice enrollees in 2019, up from 9% in 2002, according to NHPCO. The average length of stay for those patients reached 126 days in 2019, compared to 92.6 NYSE: CHE), told Hospice News in 2019.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

These results appeared in a 2019 New England Journal of Medicine study titled “Rehabbed to Death.” Even more so, specific Medicare and Medicaid policies perpetuate this cycle. After exhausting her Medicare benefits, she depleted her assets and paid out of pocket until qualifying for Medicaid.

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Hospice News

JULY 12, 2024

The bill would also implement a temporary, national moratorium on the enrollment of new hospices into Medicare, to help stem the tide of fraudulent activities among recently established providers concentrated primarily in California, Arizona, Texas and Nevada. 1, 2019 and Dec. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon).

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Hospice News

APRIL 21, 2023

In 2019, people 65 or older represented 17.5% A little more than 21,000 Medicare patients in Iowa elected hospice in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). of Wisconsin’s overall population during 2019, the U.S. of the state’s population. Adults 65 and older accounted for 17.5%

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Hospice News

APRIL 7, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is seeking answers from the hospice community — including some around utilization patterns and non-hospice spending. This includes items and services covered under Medicare Parts A, B, and D. bump from FY 2019. Between 2010 and 2019 Medicare paid a total of $6.6

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Only 7% of community-based palliative care programs are operated by home health organizations, compared to about 50% for hospices and 7%, according to 2019 data from the Center to Advance Palliative Care. Currently, the palliative care space is dominated by hospices and health systems.

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Hospice News

APRIL 22, 2024

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) proposed rule designed to strengthen oversight of those institutions. Legislators added the hospice language in response to July 2019 reports on hospice quality from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

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Hospice News

APRIL 25, 2023

The hospital is located in Robeson County, North Carolina, which as of 2019 had a total population of roughly 116,000 people. In 2019, the most recent year for which county-specific data are available, 823 Robeson residents were admitted to a hospice. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported. “A

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Hospice News

AUGUST 21, 2023

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) forthcoming Special Focus Program (SFP) for hospices. The program would have the authority to impose fines, suspend reimbursement, appoint temporary management to bring the hospice into compliance or revoke a provider’s Medicare certification altogether. million annually.

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Healthcare Law Insights podcast

JULY 12, 2023

A study published by NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan research organization, concluded that the Hospice Benefit saved Medicare $3.5 billion in 2019. The data behind that figure, and the study’s related findings, show that the value of the Medicare Hospice Benefit appears to be at odds with CMS’s regulatory priorities.

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