Posted Sunday, March 21, 2021
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MEDPAC) recently recommended to Congress that Medicare base payment rates for hospice for FY 2022 stay stable and to cut the hospice aggregate cap by 20%. They also recommended to adjust the aggregate cap.
The hospice payment cap is the maximum limit that a hospice can collect from Medicare each year, if they exceed the cap, they must refund that money to CMS. In 2021, the cap is $30,684 per patient, and close to 16% of hospices exceeded the cap in 2019.
“These above-cap hospices had high average lengths of stay and high live-discharge rates and were disproportionately for profit, freestanding, urban, small, and new entrants to the Medicare program,” MEDPAC indicated in its report to legislators. “Unlike wage-adjusted Medicare payments, the hospice aggregate cap is not wage adjusted, resulting in an aggregate cap that is stricter in some areas of the country than others.”
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