Home Health & Hospice Week

Hospices are in the hot seat for length of stay, even though it’s dropped this year. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recently noted that average LOS dropped from 2012 to 2013 for hospices, but how you stand out against your peers may still land you on reviewers’ radar.

Take a look at benchmarking information from Palmetto GBA, which has released its Non-Cancer Length of Stay stats for the last half of 2014. To access the data, go to www.palmettogba/ medicare, click on “J11 MAC Home Health and Hospice” in the left hand column, choose the “Hospice” link under the “Articles” tab in the left-hand column, and click on the March 24 NCLOS article.

Change: “In an effort to provide more inclusive diagnosis reporting on the NCLOS report, Palmetto GBA has restructured the NCLOS categories,” it says. “Data will still be dependent upon the primary diagnosis billed; however, instead of reporting POLICY specific diagnoses, Palmetto GBA will be able to provide NCLOS rates related to the ICD-9-CM reporting categories. Reporting ICD-9-CM categories will assure hospices are reporting the most appropriate diagnoses on claims and ready for the transition to ICD-10-CM.”