Hospice:
Set Benchmarks Now For a Better Financial Future
Published on Wed Nov 18, 2009
Your after hours calls could be sending your hospice a message. Three years from now, you'll be working with a brand new hospice payment system if the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services takes the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's recommendations to heart. Now's the time to take proactive steps to help secure your agency a solid future. Speaking during the National Association for Home Care & Hospice's annual meeting in October, Robert J. Simione of Simione Consultants in Hamden, Conn. predicted that the new reimbursement system will include: • rebasing of per diem rates • stratifying per diem reimbursement rates to pay more at the beginning and end of a patient's stay and less in the middle • lowering the per diem reimbursement based on the site of care. Simione urged each hospice agency to answer the question: "Does your mission get in the way of your business approach?" The [...]