Home Health & Hospice Week

With the hospice final rule for fiscal year 2023 expected soon, industry representatives are preemptively seeking out relief.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is proposing a 2.7 percent rate increase for next year. But “hospices, like all health care providers, have been stretched thin over the last two years. They have faced unrelenting workforce shortages and high staff turnover during a time when more labor has been urgently needed,” says a July 12 letter to House and Senate leaders from a group of hospice organizations led by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

The labor shortage and costs are “in addition to continued COVID-19-related expenses (i.e., personal protective equipment and testing), Medicare sequestration, and lowered revenues [which] have all added to severe financial pressure on hospices,” the letter stresses. “The calculation used by CMS to determine its proposed 2.7 percent increase is based upon cost reports from 2019, which do not reflect the inflationary spike or the current health care environment. This proposal fails to thoughtfully consider the burdens and heightened costs providers are facing in order to continue doing business and provide high quality hospice care to their patients.”

Bottom line: “When all of the aforementioned factors are taken into consideration, hospice providers are effectively facing a significant rate cut,” the letter argues. The groups ask Congress to “urge CMS to reconsider their proposed rate increase and provide adequate payment to hospice providers.”

The entire letter is at www.hospiceactionnetwork.org/ fy23-hospice-rate-increase.