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Home Health & Hospice Week

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CMS PROPOSES HOSPICE PAY CUTS, ADDED PHYSICIAN DOCUMENTATION

Published on Tue Mar 24, 2009

You'd better hope your referring docs write a compelling essay under CMS's new rule. Hospices that started receiving higher Medicare payment rates this month thanks to the economic stimulus bill won't have long to enjoy the increase. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is proposing a 1.1 percent cut to hospice payment rates beginning Oct. 1. The cut would be the result of eliminating 75 percent of the budget neutrality adjustment factor (BNAF) in the hospice wage index. CMS originally planned to phase out 25 percent of the BNAF in 2009, 50 percent in 2010, and the remaining 25 percent in 2011. But in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enacted in February, Congress delayed 2009's cut for a year (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XVIII, No. 8, p. 58). ARRA didn't affect the planned BNAF phase-out for 2010, however, noted CMS's Lori Anderson at an industry conference last month. [...]
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