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Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

Hospice:

Will 2005 Pay Update Be A Boon Or A Bust?

Published on Fri Sep 03, 2004

What hospices can expect come October 1.

The annual pay update for hospice services is in.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, rural hospices stand to gain the most next fiscal year with a $23 million increase, up 2.9 percent from 2004. Urban hospices will be nudged up 0.7 percent, while total increases are projected at 1 percent.

CMS Administrator Mark McClellan said Aug. 26 that improvements in how payments are calculated should more accurately reflect the costs of rural providers.

Hospices won't see the effect of revised definitions for Metropolitan Statistical Areas, new definitions for Micropolitan Statistical Areas or Combined Statistical Areas until 2006.

Payments for hospice services, which were introduced as a benefit in 1983, are expected to carve out a $6 billion slice of the total Medicare pie in 2005.

To read the notice in the Aug. 27 Federal Register go to
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fedreg/a040827c.html. 
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