The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s March report to Congress will recommend that hospice payment rates be frozen at current levels in 2015. The recommendation, approved by commission (MedPAC) members at their Jan. 16-17 meeting, reflected a staff estimate that hospice profit margins are averaging 7.8%. 
 
This recommendation comes amid a flurry of new regulatory requirements that hospices will have to expend considerable time, money and resources to meet. The profit estimate also doesn’t credit hospices for the non-reimbursable bereavement and volunteer costs they assume as a community service.
MedPAC members also approved a recommendation that Congress include hospice care in the benefit package Medicare Advantage (MA) plans must offer enrollees in 2016.
 
A transcript of the MedPAC’s two-day meeting is available at http://www.medpac.gov/transcripts/011714%20MedPAC.pdf. For additional coverage of the MedPAC meeting, see the Feb. 3 issue of DecisionHealth’s Home Health Line.