Eli's Hospice Insider

New year will mean new payment for affected hospices.

You’d better find out more about the Medicare Advantage hospice carve-in, before it takes you unawares.

You can peruse the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ new 44-page Technical and Operational Guidance document on the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design Model, which starts Jan. 1, at https://innovation.cms.gov/media/document/vbid-hospice-technical-guidance-cy2021.

And more information, including the nine participating Medicare Advantage Organizations — including the Visiting Nurse Service of New York — is at https://innovation.cms.gov/innovation-models/vbid.

Do this: If you operate in one of the participating MAO’s areas, “regardless of whether you are part of the MAO’s contracted network, it is important that you become familiar with the workings of the model to ensure that you follow the proper procedures for billing hospice services” for participating patients, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice emphasizes in its member newsletter. That includes reading the new guidance.

CMS also will hold monthly office hours on the Value-Based Insurance Design Model hospice component in general through January, it says. CMS held a Nov. 10 session, VBID Hospice Benefit Component Technical Support Series: Session Two, but hasn’t scheduled any more installments in that series.