President Joe Biden recently signed into law a $1.5 trillion omnibus spending bill that funds the federal government through the end of September 2022. Among the bill’s numerous provisions is an extension of the use of telehealth services to recertify patient eligibility for hospice. Please find below an overview of the bill’s telehealth provision provided by the National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI):

• An extension of the CARES Act provision allowing the use of telehealth services in place of the face-to-face encounter required to recertify patient eligibility for hospice.
• The telehealth extension is to last for 151 days following the end of the current COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). The extension is expected to last through the end of the year.
• The full text of the omnibus package can be found here, and the specific provision referenced above can be found on page 1908.

The federal omnibus spending bill referenced above did not include a provision to extend the moratorium on Medicare sequestration that is set to expire on March 31, 2022. As a result, a 1% reimbursement cut will phase back in on April 1, 2022, and a second 1% cut totaling 2% will phase back in on July 1, 2022.

Earlier this month, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) released their March 2022 Report to Congress. Please find below an overview of the report provided by NPHI:

• Chapter 11 of the report focuses exclusively on hospice services and offers two unanimous recommendations from the Commission to Congress and HHS.
• First, the Commission recommends that for fiscal year 2023, the Congress should eliminate the update to the 2022 Medicare base payment rates for hospice and wage adjust and reduce the hospice aggregate cap by 20 percent.
• Second, the Commission recommends that the Secretary should require that hospices report telehealth services on Medicare claims.