Eli's Hospice Insider

Published on Tue Sep 15, 2015 PDF

Revisions follow in freestanding report’s footsteps.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services may have issued freestanding hospices’ new cost report forms over a year ago, but new instructions are still coming down.

In July, CMS issued a transmittal containing new instructions for and changes to the form. See the transmittal at www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Transmittals/Downloads/R2P243.pdf. 

The changes include changes to Worksheet A, Worksheet A-6, Worksheets B and B-1, notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice.

Meanwhile, similar changes for non-freestanding-hospice cost reports have yet to be finalized, notes The Health Group in Morgantown, W. Va. For skilled nursing facility-based providers, “the significant expansion of reporting hospice costs by level of care (LOC) has been delayed and is now required for cost reporting years beginning on or after October 1, 2015,” reports the consulting firm. “The SNF based hospice cost reporting worksheets mirror the reporting required by freestanding hospices.”

The same goes for the changes to cost report forms for hospital-based hospices, The Health Group adds in its newsletter.

Watch out: Judging from changes to hospices’ cost reports for other settings — freestanding, SNFs, and hospitals — home health agencies “should prepare for reporting hospice costs by level of care” as well, The Health Group predicts.