Eli's Hospice Insider

A new Medicare payment model test for cancer patients may not involve hospices directly, but hospice providers may feel its waves.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is launching the “Enhancing Oncology Model to test how to improve health care providers’ ability to deliver care centered around patients, consider patients’ unique needs, and deliver cancer care in a way that will generate the best possible patient outcomes,” CMS says in a release. The model is for patients pursuing curative care.

Participating oncology practices will “provide Enhanced Services such as patient navigation, care planning, collection of electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs), and screening for social needs that may affect treatment, such as transportation issues and nutritional needs,” CMS continues. “EOM aims to increase and improve communications among patients, oncologists, and care teams in-between appointments and enable patients to more easily reach their health care providers with questions,” the agency says.

“The Enhancing Oncology Model will incentivize participating oncology practices — including those in rural and underserved areas — to improve the provision of high quality, coordinated care that addresses patients’ social needs and improves patient and caregiver support,” CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure says in the release.

“With this new Innovation Center model for oncology care, we are … creating a system of care that supports all patients and their families,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra says in the release.

More details about the model, which is scheduled to run from 2023 to 2028, are at www.cms.gov/newsroom/ fact-sheets/ enhancing-oncology-model.