The National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI) has named its new board chair: Samira Beckwith, president and CEO of Florida-based hospice provider Hope Healthcare. As Beckwith told Hospice News, value-based payment models will be a primary focus in 2021 and beyond as the future of end-of-life and serious illness care evolves and a […]
Hospice organizations and private equity investors are under increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny related to medical necessity complaints under the False Claims Act. A report from Bass, Barry, and Sims shows that a leading cause of fraud involves hospices billing Medicare for services for which patients were not eligible. This resulted in several multi-million dollar […]
Advanced Illness Partners (AIP), a joint enterprise established by seven hospice and palliative care providers, will enable its members to provide care further upstream for patients suffering from serious and chronic diseases. The venture was designed to facilitate participation in soon-to-be implemented direct contracting payment models from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services […]
A group of seven hospice and senior care providers have formed Advanced Illness Partners (AIP), a joint venture partnership geared for participation in the direct contracting payment models from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation. Several of the models are slated to launch in April, with a geographic direct contracting option coming in 2022. […]
MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care in New York settled a whistleblower case against a former employee under the civil False Claims Act for $5.225 million. The hospice acknowledged resolution of the private citizen action filing in a statement shared with Hospice News. “The allegation was that medical record documentation for hospice levels of care for […]
Florida-based Hope Hospice, a subsidiary of Hope Healthcare, has settled a False Claims Act case with the U.S. Department of Justice for $3.2 million. The Justice Department alleged that the organization knowingly certified patients for hospice care who were not truly eligible and submitted false claims to Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE, which provides insurance to […]
Medications are a top expense for hospice providers, who are dependent on capitated per diem payments from Medicare. Hospices can’t increase the amount of their income per patient, so they must rely on creating efficiencies and effective cost management to raise their margins. In addition to medications themselves, hospices spend time, effort and money on […]
