Hospice:
Data Reporting Burden Looms On Hospices' Horizon
Published on Thu Nov 15, 2012
Medicare may provide a little room on new dataset implementation, at least.Hospice providers hoping for big changes to Medicare's quality data reporting plans -- or even just more specifics -- may be disappointed with the new home health prospective payment system final rule.In the rule published in the Nov. 8 Federal Register, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalizes its proposal to continue collecting two measures for 2014 (see related box, p. 317). But in the proposed rule back in July, CMS also floated a number of ideas and questions about its expansion of hospice quality data reporting in future years and received numerous passionate comments from industry members.Most commenters were essentially fine with the two measures CMS is currently requiring hospices to collect data for. But they had a lot of constructive criticism regarding CMS's future plans (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XXI, No. 37).CMS's brief section on hospice quality data [...]