The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Hospice Quarterly Reporting Program (HQRP) Quarterly Q&A for Q1, 2024. This Q&A includes selected questions received by the HQRP Help Desk during the first quarter of 2024 (January 1 to March 31). The three questions selected for this quarter reflect newer and/or more frequent questions:
1) CMS clarifies that a Hospice Item Set (HIS) record modification is not necessary if the terminal diagnosis of a patient changes from one benefit period to the next;
2) CMS explains that the claims-based measures publicly reported on Care Compare and available to providers in the Provider Preview Reports did not change in February because these measures are only updated annually, each November;
3) CMS explains that providers will not have access to Hospice-Level Quality Measure Reports through CASPER on the claims-based measures newer than 2022 due to the data covering two years’ worth of claims data.
