Hospices and expert nursing services are prone to get a pay bump in 2022, CMS mentioned Thursday.
The company plans to extend hospice funds by 2.3%, or $530 million, in 2022. The proposed combination cap for hospice funds is just below $31,390. In accordance with a CMS truth sheet, CMS additionally plans to replace the labor shares for steady house care, route house care, inpatient respite care, and basic inpatient care.
The company proposed to make everlasting a waiver it issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that permits using a pseudo-patient for hospice aide competency coaching. CMS additionally desires to permit hospices to hold out focused competency evaluations to give attention to a hospice aide’s particular deficiencies and associated expertise.
“This may permit extremely expert aides to be educated extra rapidly with a purpose to present high-quality affected person care whereas defending affected person well being and security,” the company mentioned.
It additionally proposed so as to add client assessments of hospice suppliers below the Hospice Survey Star rankings to the Care Examine web site.
“Star rankings profit the general public in that they are often simpler for some to know than absolute measure scores, they usually make comparisons between hospices extra easy,” CMS mentioned.
As well as, the company plans so as to add a brand new measure to the Hospice High quality Reporting Program and modify the House Well being High quality Reporting Program. It additionally requested the general public to weigh in on enhancing hospice high quality measurement utilizing the Quick Healthcare Interoperability Assets commonplace.
In accordance with a CMS truth sheet, expert nursing services may additionally see their funds rise by 1.3% or $444 million.
CMS can be serious about making adjustments to the Affected person Pushed Cost mannequin and Expert Nursing Facility Worth-Based mostly Buying program in response to the COVID-19 public well being emergency. The adjustments embody a proposal to zero out the readmission measure within the VBP program to keep away from distorting efficiency scores and incentive cost multipliers, CMS mentioned.
The company can be in search of suggestions on increasing the VBP’s measure set, which Congress known as for in its huge spending bundle final December.
“CMS seeks feedback on the measures listed within the proposed rule, together with measures to evaluate residents’ views of their healthcare and measures assessing workers turnover,” the company mentioned.
As well as, CMS proposed so as to add two new measures to the Expert Nursing Facility High quality Reporting Program. As with the hospice cost rule, the company desires the general public to weigh in on enhancing high quality measurement for expert nursing services utilizing the Quick Healthcare Interoperability Assets commonplace.