Home Health & Hospice Week

Workforce struggles are one focus area.

Don’t let an opportunity to pitch a reduction in regulatory burdens pass you by. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is soliciting input on ways to reduce burden and create efficiencies, among other topics, with a new Request for Information.

CMS “is committed to engaging with partners, communities, and individuals across the health system to understand their experiences with CMS payment policies and quality programs, particularly how existing and proposed CMS payment policies and quality programs impact the experience of healthcare,” the agency says on its “Make Your Voice Heard” RFI webpage.

“Through this RFI, CMS is seeking public input on accessing healthcare and related challenges, understanding provider experiences, advancing health equity, and assessing the impact of waivers and flexibilities provided in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE),” the agency explains. “CMS will use the comments received ... to identify potential opportunities for improvement and increased efficiencies across CMS policies, programs, and practices,” it adds.

“This RFI aims to gather feedback and perspectives related to ... reducing burden, and creating efficiencies across the healthcare system,” CMS says in a release.

While the RFI has a heavy focus on addressing health disparities, CMS is looking for “requested waivers/flexibilities to make permanent,” the 12-page summary of the RFI instructs.

And it wants to know about workforce problems, including “key factors that impact provider well-being and experiences of strained healthcare workers (e.g., compassion fatigue, retention, maldistribution),” according to the RFI web form.

“This is an opportunity for providers to help CMS better understand not just individual and community-level burdens but also the factors impacting provider wellness and learn more about the distribution of the healthcare workforce,” says Katie Wehri with the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. “We are particularly interested in understanding the greatest challenges for healthcare workers in meeting the needs of individuals, and the impact of CMS policies, documen­tation and reporting requirements, operations, and communi­cations on provider experiences," Wehri tells AAPC.

Tip: “It is important that providers respond to the RFI with as much information as possible so that CMS has a clear understanding of the current state of affairs,” Wehri advises. “Specific changes that CMS could make that can help with equity, I believe, would be most appreciated.”

The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization “is thankful for this administration’s continued leadership in addressing health and social inequities and have worked to build resources for diverse communities so that hospice and palliative care providers can provide high quality, compre­hensive, and holistic care that is ... culturally and linguistically sensitive,” says NHPCO's Judi Lund Person. “Many smaller hospice and palliative care providers will need additional resources and support to address health equity concerns, including how to get started, resources for educating boards, staff and volunteers, and conducting community outreach,” Lund Person tells AAPC.

Comments are due by Nov. 4.

Note: The RFI web form and links to related materials are at www.cms.gov/request-information-make-your-voice-heard.