Home Health & Hospice Week

20 hospices will alpha test the long-in-the-works HOPE tool.

Medicare is one step closer to testing the Hospice Out-comes & Patient Evaluation (HOPE) assessment tool this fall.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released the names of the 20 hospices slated to test the HOPE tool soon. From the Visiting Nurse Service of New York to Chaplaincy Health Care in Richmond, Washington, to an LHC Group location — Elite Hospice in Mena, Arkansas, “these providers represent the diversity of hospices through their various sizes, geographic locations, urban and rural, business models, and use of electronic and paper-based data collection,” CMS says in a release.

Next step: “The HOPE assessment is important to developing a set of hospice quality measures, including outcome measures, that reflect the needs of patients, their families, and caregivers throughout the hospice stay,” CMS says.

The full list of agencies and locations is at www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/Hospice-Quality-Reporting/Spotlight.