This afternoon, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a notice updating the Medicare Hospice Wage Index with an estimated 0.9% increase in payments for FY 2013. The payment increase is the net result of a 1.6 percent increase in the hospital market basket update, which is offset by a 0.7 percentage point decrease in payments to hospices due to updated wage index data and the fourth year of CMS’ 7-year phase-out of its wage index budget neutrality adjustment factor (BNAF). The notice also provides clarification on additional diagnoses reporting on hospice claims and updates on hospice payment reform and hospice quality reporting.
The notice will be published in the Federal Register on Friday, but Hall Render has an advanced copy available Hospice-WI here.
Should you have any questions, please contact:
Todd Selby at 317.977.1440 or tselby@wp.hallrender.com;
Brian Jent at 317.977.1402 or bjent@wp.hallrender.com; or
David Bufford at 502.568.9368 or dbufford@wp.hallrender.com,
or your regular Hall Render attorney.
