From the National Rural Health Association
On March 30, 2022, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed rule to provide routine updates to the Medicare Hospice payment system for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023.
Total estimated payments to hospices of a 2.7% ($580 million) increase in their payments for FY 2023. Further, the per patient that is made to a hospice annually. The proposed aggregate cap that limits the overall hospice payments for FY 2023 is $32,142.65.
Other key proposals include:
- Establish a permanent, budget neutral, mitigation policy to smooth the impact of year-to-year changes in hospice payments related to changes in the hospice wage index through a permanent cap on decreases greater than 5%.
- Improve data collection to measure and analyze disparities across programs and policies that apply to the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) including development of a new HOPE tool, updates to quality measures, CAHPS hospice survey, and advancing HIE.
At this point, NRHA is not planning to submit comments on the proposed changes. Please share any questions or concerns with NRHA staff before the May 31, 2022 deadline. To submit comments, please do so through the federal register here. CMS’s FY23 Hospice Payment Rate Update NPRM Fact Sheet can be found here.