Home Health & Hospice Week

Retroactive help may not come until halfway through the fiscal year, though.

The economic stimulus bill signed by President Obama Feb. 17 gives hospices a helping hand -- but not quite yet.

The law delays for one year the phase-out of the budget neutrality adjustment factor (BNAF) that took effect Oct. 1. The BNAF reduction to wage index, which is the first step in the three-part BNAF phase-out, cut about 1.1 percent from hospice rates in fiscal year 2009.

The law requires the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to recompute and apply the final wage index for FY 2009 as if there had been no reduction due to the BNAF phase-out, CMS's Lori Anderson noted in the Feb. 18 Open Door Forum for hospice and other home care providers.

"To implement the provision in this law, CMS is currently working to install the new pricing in the claims processing system as soon as possible," Anderson told forum participants.

No extra work: In the meantime CMS won't hold hospice claims, but will process them as usual under the old payment rules. Once the system is updated, CMS's contractors will reprocess the claims automatically.

CMS will issue more information on the claims reprocessing timing and other provider education as soon as possible, Anderson pledged.