Home Health & Hospice Week

Don’t be fooled by the notice in the May 27 Federal Register putting off the hospice COPs another year--they’ll be out June 6.

CMS issued the notice postponing the Medicare hospice COPs until May 2009. Hospices hoped for the COPs to come out by May because of the three-year limit on publishing final rules after proposed rules. CMS issued the hospice COPs proposed rule in May 2005.

But CMS can extend the final rule publication date for special reasons. CMS said the “complexity of the rule and the large number of public comments we received” necessitated a postponement.

CMS needed to publish the notice because the Office of Management and Budget was running a few days behind in clearing the new standards, attorney Mary Michal with the Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren in Madison, WI tells Eli.

See them now: The COPs are already on display at http://federalregister.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/08-1305_PI.pdf, although they won’t be in the Federal Register until June 6.

Some good news is that hospices will have a little while to digest the changes, observers note. CMS grants 180 days from the date of publication until the COPs become final, instead of the 60 or 90 days some hospices thought it might provide.

Hospices may need that six months to become familiar with the new 757-page regulation.

Note: Watch for analysis of the new COPs in upcoming issues of Eli’s Home Care Week.