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CMS has finalized fiscal year (FY) 2018 Medicare hospice reimbursement rates and other updates to Medicare hospice policies. As mandated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), CMS is increasing FY 2018 hospice rates by 1% (approximately $180 million) for those hospices that submit required quality data; this update is reduced…

 The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reviewed the Medicare Five-Star Quality Rating System for nursing homes and identified several factors that may prevent consumers from using the website “as an easy way to understand nursing home quality and identify high- and low- performing homes.”  In particular, GAO concluded:

  • The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’

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CMS has released a final rule that updates the Medicare hospice wage index, payment rates, and cap amount for fiscal year (FY) 2017. CMS estimates that the final rule will increase overall Medicare payments to hospices by 2.1%, or $350 million, in FY 2017. This increase reflects a 2.7% market basket update, which will be reduced by a 0.3 percentage point productivity adjustment and an additional 0.3 percentage point adjustment required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Hospices that do not meet quality reporting requirements will receive a 2.0 percentage point reduction to their payment update. The final hospice cap amount for 2017 is $28,404.99, compared to the 2016 cap amount of $27,820.75.
Continue Reading CMS Issues Final Update to Medicare Hospice Payment Rules for FY 2017

CMS has made revisions to the measurements used in the Nursing Home Compare Five Star Quality Rating System that have resulted in a decline in the star rating for about one-third of nursing homes. Specifically, on February 20, 2015, CMS added quality measures regarding the use of antipsychotics, revised the calculation of nursing home staffing…

The GAO recently examined the effectiveness of health cost and quality transparency tools available to consumers, including two private consumer health cost/quality websites and CMS “Compare” databases. The GAO determined that the CMS tools — Nursing Home Compare, Dialysis Facility Compare, Home Health Compare, Hospital Compare and Physician Compare — are limited in their provision…