January 16, 2025 Washington, DC — Statement from Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO, LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit providers of aging services, on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) hospice special focus program (SFP), the focus of a lawsuit filed in Texas:

“Good hospice care, because of its holistic, patient- and family-centered compassionate approach to the dying, is a godsend. That’s why we support the spirit and intent of the SFP. The SFP’s goal is to improve poor-performing hospices. For the SFP to succeed, good execution is critical–and on this, CMS is failing. Sadly, this is not a surprise: for months leading up to the program’s launch, we urged CMS to go back to the drawing board on several important issues, including data selection and scaling, and the weighting used in the SFP algorithm.

CMS’s decision to move forward with a flawed methodology for the SFP algorithm threatens the ability of millions of older adults and other hospice beneficiaries to access quality hospice care. Furthermore, the implementation of this poorly designed algorithm, which has faced widespread criticism from congressional leaders, technical experts, and leaders in the hospice community, will obstruct the shared goal of improving sector quality.

Over the past several years, we and other members of the hospice community have provided CMS with extensive research and well-supported advocacy through letters, in-person meetings, and other channels. We have also reiterated our concerns to the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Domestic Policy Council.

Nor did CMS listen to the joint letter from national hospice organizations or the congressional leaders who reached out and met with the White House Domestic Policy Council, OMB. CMS did not listen to the community of experts on the Technical Expert Panel that advised CMS on SFP. CMS did not listen to what Congress asked them to do, dating as far back as fall of 2021.

CMS should take time to make sure the SFP is done right; we ask that CMS take down the current candidate list and go back to rulemaking to ensure a better algorithm and accurate data. We look forward to working with the new administration and our partners to make this program effective for beneficiaries.”