July 30, 2024 Washington, DC —  A statement from Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO, LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit providers of aging services, including hospices, on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) release of the FY2025 Hospice Payment Rate Update Final Rule:

“​​Good hospice care is a holistic, patient- and family-centered, compassionate approach to the dying—and it can be a godsend. We recognize that a 2.9% is an increase, but given the  challenges our mission driven and nonprofit members continue to navigate, particularly a very competitive labor market especially for registered nurses, the final rule falls short of the need.

On other aspects of the rule: 

• HOPE tool: It is clear from the final rule that CMS has a lot to consider in their updates to the HOPE tool. We look forward to working with CMS and reviewing the final HOPE guidance documentation which will be published in the coming weeks.
• Changes to Hospice CAHPS: We are grateful CMS delayed the implementation of the Hospice CAHPS changes an additional 10 months to allow adequate time to develop the web-mode of delivery. The opportunity to increase participation in the CAHPS survey is the paramount priority for the entire hospice community.
• Finalized Quality Measures: We appreciate CMS allowing for LPNs and LVNs to conduct the follow-up visits for the new hospice quality measures, which will greatly reduce staffing burden for providers. While CMS did not finalize the ability to conduct these visits via telehealth, we still believe the collection of telehealth data is critically important to understand the characteristics of hospice providers and patient populations utilizing telehealth. 

While a payment mechanism to account for high-intensity palliative care services was not finalized in this rule, we will continue to collaborate with Congress and CMS to move this policy forward.