Eli's Hospice Insider

Potential cost report problem cleared up by CMS clarification.

Hospices need to be getting used to new cost reporting rules this fiscal year.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released its new hospice cost report form at the end of August. If you looked at the draft document CMS floated last November, you should have a pretty good idea of what the new form is like, a CMS official said in the agency’s Aug. 20 Open Door Forum. The agency merely shaded some lines on the B worksheet and corrected a few grammatical errors in the final version, he said.

Significant changes to the cost report would have required another round of rulemaking and comments, the staffer noted.

The new cost report took effect Oct. 1, the CMS staffer said in response to a question from CPA Dave Macke at VonLehman in Ft. Mitchell, Ky. But it only applies to freestanding hospices, the staffer clarified. Provider-based hospices, including hospital- and home health-based providers, will get new cost report forms at a later unspecified date.

Note This Change To The Hospice Cost Report

One troubling aspect of the new hospice cost report has been cleared up. “We requested a technical revision to the new Hospice Cost & Data Report to address the inability to allocate House-keeping costs to Patient Inpatient/Residential Costs,” says William (Ted) Cuppett with The Health Group in Morgantown, W. Va., on behalf of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice. “CMS agreed with us and will be making this change,” Cuppett says in a message to members.

CMS will allow input in the Patient Residential Care Services line (line 17) in the Housekeeping column (column 7) on Worksheets B and B-1, a CMS official told NAHC in an email. Watch for CMS to issue official instructions about the change.

Note: See the new cost report at www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Transmittals/Downloads/R1P243.pdf.