Hospice News

JANUARY 17, 2025

Earl Blumenauers (D-Oregon)] proposal for reform incorporated both payment for some types of palliative care, and aspects of [the Medicare Care Choices Model ] that allowed some care and support prior to hospice election. They also spoke about the need for greater integration of palliative care into the larger health care continuum.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Our philosophy is that palliative care as a whole should be kind of a blanket that goes over all of those things and helps coordinate the care that those patients need across all of those settings, no matter which specialists they’re seeing or which which Medicare defined service line they’re a part of, Walker told Palliative Care News.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 4, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized a nearly 2.9% To put it bluntly, Medicare plans to pay us less while costs go up. Since 1992, Medicare payment has been made under the PFS for the services of physicians and other billing professionals. Industry organizations were quick to denounce the pay cut. “To

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Hospice News

MARCH 4, 2025

The value-based agreement contracts Thyme Care with Humana Medicare Advantage plans, giving them access to their beneficiaries. Humana Medicare Advantage members who are eligible for the program in Michigan, New York, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and New Jersey may now receive services from Thyme Care.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 20, 2024

Access was the watchword in the palliative care community during 2024, as providers sought more ways to reach the right patients at the right time. The following are the most-read Palliative Care News articles of 2024. Substances in this realm include cannabis, ketamine, MDMA and psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD, among others.

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Hospice News

APRIL 21, 2025

Risk-based contracts may be the future of palliative care reimbursement as Medicare Advantage continues to ascend. The simple term value-based care belies its complexity. The term can refer to any number of payment models that are designed to reduce total cost of care and improve outcomes. There’s a large spectrum of value based care.

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Hospice News

MAY 7, 2025

California governor Jerry Brown in 2014 signed into law SB 1004, which requires managed care plans associated with Medi-Cal (Californias Medicare) to provide for palliative care programs. While community-based palliative care is important for many patients, many providers may consider it to be a financial challenge.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

Palliative care providers are taking varied routes to address the most disruptive forces they are encountering this year, rising to challenges that have been persistent across the sector. Martha Twaddle, The Waud Family Medical Directorships palliative medicine and supportive care clinical professor of medicine at Northwestern Medicine.

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Hospice News

JUNE 28, 2023

Despite this potential, existing programs hit barriers created by misconceptions about palliative care among referring physicians, as well as health equity concerns, among others, according to an analysts of four payment model demonstrations carried out by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 19, 2025

That model aligns to a large degree with that used within the Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) payment demonstration from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, according to study author and research scientist Dr. Greg Sachs with the Indiana University Center for Aging Research at Regenstrief Institute.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 28, 2024

Fraudsters misspend millions of Medicare dollars annually, though the actual hospice-specific amounts are difficult to determine, regulators previously told Hospice News. In the end, Medicare fraud costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year. Each dollar lost to fraud takes away resources intended for people with Medicare.”

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

For the time being, Medicare Advantage may be providers’ best bet for palliative care reimbursement. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also allows Medicare Advantage plans to cover palliative care as a supplemental benefit.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Des Moines, Iowa-based WesleyLife at Home has launched the areas first home-based palliative care program. The organization is the fourth-largest home health provider in the state, according to Aaron Wheeler, vice president of home and community-based services. Both are hospital- and clinic-based. The goal is to eliminate barriers to care.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 29, 2025

The two organizations, which have partnered on projects related to critical care hospitals and Medicare beneficiaries, will choose five rural communities in the state with the goal of increasing their capacity to provide palliative care. MCRH launched phase 2 on Jan.

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Hospice News

APRIL 9, 2024

Reimbursement for community-based palliative care is gaining ground in the Medicare Advantage realm. Palliative care is among the wide range of supplemental benefits that exist within the Medicare Advantage payment landscape. This is a rise from 180 MA plans in 2023 offering palliative services and 64 MA plans in 2020.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 13, 2023

A moving target in palliative care delivery is whether or not these services should have a dedicated benefit in the Medicare system. Most palliative care in the United States is reimbursed through fee-for-service programs, as well as Medicare Advantage, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and through Medicaid in a handful of states.

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Hospice News

MARCH 17, 2025

Congress has passed the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act 2025 (FY2025) , which allowed for continuation of several public health, Medicare and Medicaid authorities and programs. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) temporarily instituted waivers during the public health emergency.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 10, 2025

He was so intrigued that he gathered a few volunteers and began Hospice of the Valley, which was largely a volunteer organization living off of a few grants here and there prior to when hospice Medicare reimbursement came around in the early 1980s. There was a lot of community involvement. That is the future.

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Hospice News

MARCH 19, 2025

After hiring their first nurse, Shayla Rowley, who is now COO, the team had plenty of knowledge about the home health and hospice aspects of Medicare Part A, which they used as the basis of their operational model. They quickly ramped up on Medicare Part B, physician care, and used it to create their service lines and billing codes.

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Hospice News

MARCH 4, 2025

Bill is an icon in the industry and a staunch Medicare beneficiary advocate, always putting patients first and fighting for their rights and benefits. He was instrumental in the development of the Medicare Prospective Payment System (PPS), which emerged in home health reimbursement in 2000.

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Hospice News

MARCH 14, 2025

Potential is mounting for deeper integration of palliative care delivery across the continuum, with some health care settings better poised than others for evolving opportunities. The Washington-based provider offers adult and pediatric hospice, palliative care, grief support and senior living services.

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Hospice News

MAY 7, 2025

Traditional Medicare only reimburses for physician and licensed independent practitioner services and does not support the full range of interdisciplinary care. A new palliative care provider has emerged in Colorado, branded as Journey of Care. The company was established about six months ago. Its really hard to find.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 8, 2025

Hospice utilization reached 43.77% among Medicare decedents in Hawaii during 2022, according to a report from the National Alliance for Care at Home. Several of the hospices in the collaborative launched services in early 1980s when the Medicare Hospice Benefit was established. This fell below the national average of 49.1%

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Hospice News

MARCH 26, 2025

” The study cohort included Medicare beneficiaries 65 or older who were diagnosed with distant-stage female breast, colorectal, non-small cell lung, small cell lung, pancreatic or prostate cancers between 2010 to 2019 with survival of at least six months. . A decline occurred with between-provider variation, 45.3%

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Hospice News

MARCH 22, 2023

All told, hospice care — regardless of length of stay — saves Medicare approximately $3.5 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the U.S. The post Longer Hospice Stays Lead to Larger Medicare Cost Savings appeared first on Hospice News. billion for patients in their last year of life, a 3.1%

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Hospice News

APRIL 28, 2025

The report, Trends, Patterns, and Key Comparisons Related to New Medicare Hospice Provider Enrollments May Indicate the Need for Further Oversight is expected to publish in Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. It will examine potential red flags of fraud, waste and abuse among newly enrolled Medicare hospice providers claims data.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 31, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in response to fraud allegations that have resulted in licensure and billing privilege revocation. District Court for the Central Division of California to allow for continued Medicare licensure until the fraud dispute is resolved through the U.S. court documents stated.

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Hospice News

MAY 28, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in March issued its 2025 proposed hospice rule, which if finalized would include a 2.6% Most hospices also do not have a diversified payer mix and are dependent on the Medicare Hospice Benefit. “We The proposed 2.6% increase in the per diem base rate.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 18, 2023

Aetna remains focused on providing benefits and services to help our members age in the place that is best for them – whether that is with caregivers or without, in a family home or in a senior living community,” Terri Swanson, president of Medicare for Aetna, told Hospice News in an email. “We

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 14, 2025

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. He cited a goal to work with Medicare, Medicaid and Medicare Advantage programs in varied ways that improve health outcomes for beneficiaries. HHS subagencies include the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, among others.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) could produce misinformation that could interfere with access to care. 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. The program, set to begin Jan.

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Hospice News

APRIL 10, 2024

The Medicare Hospice Benefit could use an “upgrade” to ensure greater flexibility that may be necessary to fully support patients’ needs. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should consider is retiring the six-month terminal prognosis requirement and allowing for some concurrent care, Wallace and Wladkowski indicated.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 25, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) payment model. Demographic trends were among the key factors that drove the program forward, said Monica Escalante, chief strategy and information officer at Hospice of the Chesapeake.

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Hospice News

APRIL 18, 2025

These regions have seen swarms of new hospices emerging and receiving Medicare dollars. A beneficiarys Medicare card is worth more to a scammer than a credit card, Clark told Hospice News at ELEVATE. Four states have garnered national attention as fraud hotbeds Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas.

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Hospice News

JUNE 27, 2022

Social and economic factors like these drive 40% of health outcomes, according to the Better Medicare Alliance. Health care providers, payers, and other stakeholders are increasingly paying more attention to both social determinants and palliative care, including Medicare and Medicaid. Case in point, the U.S.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 3, 2024

About 48,644 Medicare decedents utilized hospice services that year, a lower number compared to other states, according to the U.S. About 48,644 Medicare decedents utilized hospice services that year, a lower number compared to other states, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 27, 2022

Currently Medicare reimburses for palliative care physician and licensed independent practitioner services through fee-for-service payment programs that do not sufficiently cover the full range of interdisciplinary care. But we’re not so good about going out there in the community and figuring out how to bargain with insurance plans.”.

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