Home Health & Hospice Week

Say goodbye to Section O.

It’s official: The Office of Management and Budget has finally come through with approval for the new Hospice Item Set update.

“HIS Manual V3.00 has been updated from V2.01 to reflect the removal of Section O and associated measures,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said in a Feb. 26 post to its HIS webpage.

CMS had moved ahead with adopting the V3.00 update on Jan. 1 and would accept HIS files with or without Section O information; but the manual was still in draft form until the OMB approved it (see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXX, No. 5). Now the HIS Admission and Discharge tools and manual have effective dates of Feb. 16 and expire on Feb. 29, 2024, according to the documents.

Reminder: The update removes Section O from the Discharge Assessment and “thus ends data collection for the Hospice Visits When Death Is Imminent (HVWDII) measure pair,” CMS points out on its website. The new claims-based Hospice Visits in Last Days of Life (HVLDL) measure will take its place.

Meanwhile, the assessment tool that is set to replace the HIS is getting closer to implementation.

CMS has posted a summary report of the Technical Expert Panel meetings about the Hospice Outcomes & Patient Evaluation tool. Multiple TEP sessions took place from March to November of 2020, the report notes. The 36-page report covers topics discussed, details, recommendations, and ideas for future research.

Up next: HOPE contractor Abt Associates “will hold a Spring TEP webinar in May or June 2021,” the report says. “Current proposed topics for the Spring TEP webinar include a measure update, review of preliminary HOPE alpha test data, and any information gathering updates.”

Note: The updated forms and manual and a change table are in the “Downloads” section at www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality- Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/Hospice-Quality-Reporting/Hospice-Item-Set-HIS. The TEP report is at www.cms.gov/files/document/2020-hqrp-tep-summary-report.pdf.