Following the September 2025 meeting of a Technical Expert Panel (TEP) convened by the the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to discuss potential changes to the Medicare Hospice Wage Index, the agency, via its contractor Abt Global, compiled panel notes summarizing the meeting. The result: a summary report and a technical report.
As the first step in its work to to develop a proposed alternative to the current hospice wage index, CMS used the September 10, 2025 meeting to acquire stakeholder and expert input to inform refinements that would utilize new data sources including claims data and data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Fourteen panelists attended the meeting, including LeadingAge’s Katy Barnett, Director, Home Care and Hospice Operations and Policy and Jill Rehl of LeadingAge member Essentia Health.
The TEP summary report summarizes the discussion and TEP recommendations. The TEP technical report provides a detailed examination of the discussed alternative approaches.
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