Home Health & Hospice Week

Hospices face their own face-to-face encounter requirement under HH PPS rule. Starting Oct. 1, your Medicare payments will get a little better -- but just a little. Hospices' Medicare payment rates will increase 1.8 percent. The 2.6 percent market basket inflation update was offset by two reductions, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says  in a notice published in the July 22 Federal Register. A 0.8 percent reduction mandated in the health reform law and year two of the hospice benefit's phase-out of the wage index budget neutrality adjustment factor (BNAF) both cut hospices' payment increase. Hospices also have their own face-to-face encounter requirements, but they are proposed in the home health prospective payment system rule published in the July 23 Federal Register. CMS had to include the provision in the HH PPS rule because it had not planned a hospice proposed rule allowing comments this year. Two weeks: Hospice [...]