The U.S Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) star ratings system for hospice quality may have unintended consequences for small providers. CMS began posting star ratings for hospices on its Care Compare website last month. With new quality measurement methodologies still in the works or in the early days of implementation, Consumer Assessment of […]
Buyers in a hot hospice M&A market are bringing compliance under a microscope as regulators keep a tight watch. All hospice transactions undergo some type of compliance review. But there’s nothing routine about these reviews in today’s current hospice regulatory environment. Combing through a hospice’s referral streams and financial or claims data can help identify […]
Current immigration policies are straining hospices’ ability to grow and retain their workforce amid widespread shortages. Immigrant workers help to fill some of the biggest areas of need in the hospice and palliative care labor supply. But national policies are contributing to a diminishing pool of these workers, putting pressure on providers’ capacity to accept […]
Many hospices have relied heavily on travel nurse agencies to reinforce their clinical teams during the pandemic. Now, a pair of bills currently before Congress would require a federal study of those agencies’ impact on health care. The Travel Nursing Agency Transparency Study Act would instruct the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the […]
The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has reiterated that the agency will not allow hospices to use telehealth to recertify patients after the COVID-19 public health emergency expires. CMS published a blog and a series of fact sheets today that the agency described as a “roadmap” for health care providers to navigate […]
Stretching back more than a decade, a rising number of states have passed laws designed to raise awareness of hospice and palliative care, but to date, few if any have achieved measurable results. The reasons for this run the gamut. During the past two years, for instance, state governments and health care organizations have been […]
Medicare claims for unrelated services creates serious financial and legal risks for hospice providers — even if they are not the ones who sent the bill. During recent years, payouts for non-hospice services provided to Medicare beneficiaries have tipped into the billions. Investigators have urged regulators to ramp up oversight of potentially inappropriate billing practices. […]
Skilled nursing company American Senior Communities (ASC) has settled a False Claims Act case for nearly $5.6 million following reports by hospice employees who cared for their residents. The U.S. Department of Justice alleged that the Indiana-based company billed Medicare separately for services that should have been covered by the hospice benefit. The hospice workers […]
Proposed federal legislation could advance the development of an evidence-based definition of “high-quality” bereavement care. The language appears in the 2023 appropriations bill for the departments of Labor, Health & Human Services, Education, and related agencies. Considered “report language,” the bereavement portion of the bill is a recommendation to federal agencies to pursue its stated […]
Massachusetts legislators recently allocated more than $8.7 million in the state’s 2023 fiscal year budget to support pediatric palliative care access. The funding is intended to support expanded palliative care services for seriously and terminally ill children amid rising demand. Massachusetts State Sen. Sal DiDomenico has been a primary advocate of pediatric palliative care in […]
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