LeadingAge national sends pre-comment deadline letter to CMS on hospice special focus program

In partnership with other national hospice organizations, LeadingAge national submitted a pre-deadline comment on CMS’ proposal regarding the implementation of the hospice special focus program. This proposal is included in the CY2024 home health rule. LeadingAge national is supportive of the idea of a special focus program for hospice but are concerned that the algorithm proposed by CMS will not actually capture the poorest performing hospices. The letter outlines concerns regarding the algorithm and asks CMS to delay the program implementation in order to refine the algorithm and go through notice and comment rulemaking on a new version in future rulemaking. We also ask that providers be given a “preview year” where they can see where they would fall under the algorithm and both providers and CMS could see potential pitfalls with the methodology and smooth them out before going live. The letter can be found here.