Hospice:
Quality Reporting Burdens May Sink Small Hospices
Published on Thu Oct 25, 2012
Hospice providers give CMS an earful on quality reporting proposals.Hospices are hoping to see a lot of changes to Medicare's quality reporting plans when the final rule spelling them out is published shortly.Chief among the complaints about the Cen-ters for Medicare & Medicaid Services' proposals is the lack of any spiritual or psychosocial measures for inclusion in the first round of expansion.Background: After its voluntary test last year, CMS began requiring data reporting for two measures Oct. 1 -- the structural measure on whether a hospice has a Quality Assessment and Performance Improvement (QAPI) program that includes at least three quality indicators related to patient care; and National Quality Forum-endorsed measure #209 on pain management (see related story, p. 295). As opposed to the test last year, hospices can at least check off their quality indicator topics rather than enter free text descriptions of them.Next, CMS plans to add more measures [...]