NHPCO NewsLine Spring 2021 - 12

continued

Innovation in Serious Illness
Care Delivery and Payment
▌	 Concurrent Care: Avoid having
patients in need of hospice
care make " the terrible
choice " between continuing
disease-directed therapies like
chemotherapy and dialysis
and accessing personcentered, interdisciplinary
care services provided by
hospice and palliative care
providers. Expand upon the
CMS Innovation Center's
Medicare Care Choices Model
which improved quality and
produced cost savings when
testing concurrent care in
hospice.*
▌	 Create a Community-Based
Palliative Care Benefit:
Determine the scope of
required services that define
" Community-Based Palliative
Care " which is offered by an
interdisciplinary team.
Improve care delivery across
the care continuum by
covering needed communitybased palliative care further
upstream from hospice. *
▌	 MA VBID Hospice Carve-In
Delay: Halt the 2021 CMMI
Value-Based Insurance
Demonstration model until
community-based palliative
care is defined, proper quality
measures are developed, and
operational concerns are
addressed. As currently
structured, beneficiaries
participating in the model risk
their access to high quality
hospice care.*

12

Newsline / Spring 2021

Ensure Program Integrity
▌	 Improve survey process and promote smart oversight: Through
implementation of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021,
improve hospice surveyor training and reporting of survey findings,
offer remedies for poor-performing hospices and provide education
about sanctions and the 4% payment withhold for hospices not
participating in hospice quality reporting.
*Indicates a policy priority that may require federal legislation.

Representative Policy Accomplishments
from 2020
NHPCO continues to serve as an effective advocate and resource for
hospice and palliative care providers. Here are some of the policy
successes from last year that supported the entire provider community.

CARES Act
▌	 Face-to-Face Encounter: Secured inclusion and passage of provision
in the CARES Act that allows hospice face-to-face encounter to
occur through telecommunications until the end of the COVID-19
public health emergency.
▌	 Sequestration Relief: Secured inclusion and passage of provision in
the CARES Act that eliminated the 2% reduction in Medicare
reimbursement through end of 2020.
▌	 Emergency Support Funding: Included allocation of $1 billion in
CARES Act Provider Relief Funding to hospice providers.

Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021
▌	 Rural Access to Hospice Legislation: Successfully advocated for
inclusion and passage of hospice access legislation HR 2594/S. 1190.
▌	 Sequestration: Lead a coalition in successfully advocating for
inclusion of continued sequestration relief through March 31, 2021.
▌	 Hospice Program Integrity Legislation: Ensured current hospice
survey frequency of every three years by defeating provision
originally included that would have increased survey frequency to
every two years. Successfully advocated for other key provisions
related to consistency of hospice surveys and education for hospice
surveyors.
NHPCO NewsLine Spring 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NHPCO NewsLine Spring 2021
