Eli's Hospice Insider

Submitting and collecting are both required to preserve your payment rates.

Don’t forget: You should be pulling double duty when it comes to hospice quality data. “As part of the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) requirements, hospice providers should currently be engaging in two activities: data submission activities for the Payment Year 2014 cycle and data collection activities for the Payment Year 2015 cycle,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says in a message to providers. Hospices are reporting data on two measures.

The structural measure deadline of Jan. 31 has passed, but “providers that may have missed the structural measure deadline can still visit the data entry website, create an account, and enter their NQF #0209 data,” CMS encourages.

The NQF #0209 deadline is April 1, CMS reminds hospices. Hospices will see a 2 percent cut to their payment update in 2014 if they don’t submit data on time.

And CMS will require data on the two measures for all of calendar year 2013, the agency reiterates. That means you should already be collecting the data and be ready to report it next year.