Eli's Hospice Insider

New format will add burden to hospices’ cost reporting efforts.

Policymakers plan to use data you’ll be reporting on new hospice cost reports to help craft hospice payment reform.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued proposed cost report changes at the same time as its 2014 hospice payment rule, although in a separate Paperwork Reduction Act notice at www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Legislation/PaperworkReductionActof1995/PRA-Listing.html — scroll down to the “Hospice Cost and Data Report” listing on April 29. CMS is taking comments on the cost report until June 28, noted CMS’s Gail Duncan in the May 8 Open Door Forum for home care providers.

“The cost report is substantially expanded from the current cost reporting form, and focuses on a process to have costs reported based on the level of care,” the National Association for Home Care & Hospice says. “To accurately complete the draft Hospice Cost and Data Report will require most hospices to substantially expand their chart of accounts and accumulate statistical information not presently being accumulated.”

Hospices will need to segregate all direct patient care costs by multiple cost categories into the four respective levels of hospice care, NAHC notes. And CMS has expanded the general service cost centers and sections on non-reimbursable activities such as marketing. “The expansion of general cost centers far exceeds what was anticipated,” the trade group says.