Eli's Hospice Insider

Are you going to be facing a reimbursement cut next year that you don’t even know about?

If you didn’t receive a letter saying you’ll be docked 2 percent for 2018 payment rates due to Hospice Quality Reporting Program data submission, you should be in the clear — or are you? There’s one way to know for sure, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials said in the Aug. 9 Open Door Forum for homehealth and hospice providers. Check your accountin the QIES system to see if there’s a notification letter there.

CMS sent paper letters to hospices on July 18 and placed a CASPER letter in their QIES accounts if they failed to submit required CAHPS and Hospice Item Set data in 2016, and thus will be subject to the 2 percent cut in fiscal year 2018, which starts Oct. 1, CMS says in an email message to providers.

Too late: The deadline for submitting a reconsideration request was Aug. 17, CMS officials said in the forum.

More information on data submission requirements and the reconsideration process is at www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/Hospice-Quality-Reporting/Reconsideration-Requests.html.

CMS also addressed CAHPS in the forum. Don’t forget to submit your size exemption form for CAHPS every year, a CMS official urged.

The form for 2017 is due Dec. 31, but “don’t wait, go ahead and get it taken care of,” the staffer urged. Hospices qualify for the exception if they had fewer than 50 CAHPS survey-eligible decedents in 2016. The form is available at www.hospicecahpssurvey.org.