The CY2025 hospice final rule just posted to the Federal Register preview page. NAHC-NHPCO Alliance staff are currently reviewing and analyzing the rule and will provide a detailed summary soon. Below is the summary of the major provisions of the rule as stated in the preview.
Summary of the Major Provisions Section III.A.1 of this final rule updates the hospice wage index and makes the application of the updated wage data budget neutral for all four levels of hospice care. Section III.A.2 of this final rule adopts the new OMB labor market delineations from the July 21, 2023, OMB Bulletin No. 23-01 based on data collected from the 2020 Decennial Census. Section III.A.3 of this final rule includes the final FY 2025 hospice payment update percentage of 2.9 percent. Section III.A.4 of this final rule includes updates to hospice payment rates. Section III.A.5 of this final rule includes an update to the hospice cap amount for FY 2025 by the hospice payment update percentage of 2.9 percent. In section III.B of this final rule, we make clarifying changes to the hospice Conditions of Participation (CoPs) and adopt clarifying regulations text, with no change to current policy. This includes reorganizing the regulations to clearly identify the distinction between the "election statement" and the "notice of election," as well as including clarifying text changes that align payment regulations and CoPs regarding who may certify terminal illness and determine admission to hospice care. This section also finalizes technical regulations text changes in the Medical Director CoP at § 418.102. In addition, we are making a technical correction in the personnel requirements at § 418.114(b)(9), where we inadvertently used the term "marriage and family counselor" when the correct term is "marriage and family therapist." In section III.C of this final rule, we include a summary of comments received on a potential policy to account for higher hospice costs involved in the provision of high intensity palliative care treatments. Finally, in section III.D of this final rule, we finalize HOPE-based process measures; finalize the HOPE instrument; discuss updates to potential future quality measures; and finalize changes to the CAHPS® Hospice Survey.
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Katie Wehri
Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Quality & Compliance
NAHC
Washington, DC
202-240-9254 #3360
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