The hospice payment increase for fiscal year 2024 climbed to 3.1%, up slightly from the 2.8% proposed in March, according to the FY2024 Hospice Payment Rate Update Final Rule released late Friday afternoon. This equates to an estimated increase in payments of $780 million from FY2023.
The statutory aggregate cap will increase to $33,494.01, up from $32,486.92 in the current fiscal year.
CMS notes in the rule that, beginning with FY2024, hospices that fail to meet quality reporting requirements will receive a 4 percentage point reduction in the annual hospice payment update percentage, meaning a 0.9% reduction in payments in the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2023.
The final rule includes responses to several questions from the proposed rule related to the provision of higher levels of hospice care; spending patterns for non-hospice services provided during the election of the hospice benefit; ownership transparency; equipping patients and caregivers with information to inform hospice selection; and ways to examine health equity under the hospice benefit.
It also included several updates relative to the development of a patient assessment instrument, titled HOPE, and future quality measures. CMS also provided updates on health equity related to the Hospice Quality Reporting Program (HQRP) and future efforts to develop health equity measures.
The final rule also:
- Codified the HQRP data completion threshold policy.
- Finalized a requirement that hospice physicians be enrolled in or opted out of Medicare, effective May 1, 2024.
- Finalized text changes related to the provision of telehealth services for the face-to-face encounter conducted by a hospice physician or nurse practitioner for the sole purpose of hospice recertification through Dec. 31, 2024.