MedPAC States: Cut Hospice Payment Cap by 20%, Report Telehealth on Claims

March 21, 2022

Recently, MedPAC has suggested to Congress that current hospice payment rates should stay at the current levels for the coming year. They also recommend that the U.S. Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) apply the wage index to the hospice aggregate cap and a 20% cut.

Due to the impact of Covid-19, MedPAC is not recommending any changes to the hospice payment for 2023. Because of the data lags Covid-19 has caused, they will still be using the utilizations and costs from the 2020 data and the margins data from 2019. 

“We have considered the effects of the coronavirus public health emergency (PHE) and associated relief policies on our indicators and whether those effects are likely to be temporary or permanent,” MedPAC said in its report to legislators. 

They have also recommended that hospice agencies start reporting telehealth visits on their Medicare claims. There was a lack of telehealth utilization data during the past two years of the pandemic, so it has been difficult to predict the costs for the coming years. 

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