Page 1 - 2018HospiceHighlights

2018

HOSPICE Highlights

The Pennsylvania Homecare Association (PHA) is proud to offer a variety of tools, resources,

advocacy opportunities, and educational workshops to keep hospice and palliative care

members up-to-date on the latest regulations and legislation affecting our industry. This year,
hospice providers saw a Medicare rate increase, new legislation providing flexibility for drug

disposal, and other benefits and improvements for end-of-life care that could not have been

possible without the dedication and efforts of our members.

Here are some hospice highlights from 2018…

PHA-Authored Legislation Permits Agencies to Dispose of Medications

After the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) issued a rule in 2014 that prohibited

many healthcare providers from handling a patient’s unused medications, hospice
providers were powerless to help families safely dispose of dangerous controlled

substances when a loved one passed. Hospice staff educated families about safe disposal

methods, but were not permitted to help families at a time when drug disposal was the
last thing on their minds.

In an effort to help families during this stressful time, PHA worked in collaboration with

the State Attorney General’s office to distribute free drug deactivation pouches to
hospices across the Commonwealth to help them with safe disposal. But members

needed more – a survey showed that 96% of hospices wanted the ability to dispose

narcotics.

PHA providers took action to draft and pass into law a bill that now permits nurses to dispose of a patient’s unused

prescription medications. Thanks to PHA’s relationships with key legislative leaders like Senator Lisa Baker (R-Luzerne), this

bill made the difficult journey from concept to final passage in just under six months. This is a great step forward for helping

grieving families do the right thing and helping address Pennsylvania’s opioid addiction crisis.

2018 Medicare Hospice Rates Increase, Regulatory Burdens Lessened

Not only did this year’s payment update rule include a 1.8% rate increase for 2019 Medicare hospice

payments, CMS continued its work to reduce regulatory burdens on Medicare providers at the urging of
advocacy groups like PHA.

• Effective October 1, CMS now permits hospice providers to choose the way they report hospice
drug information on the claim form, whether as separate line items or total charge amounts.
• Effective January 1, 2019, patients are permitted to choose a physician assistant for their hospice
attending physician and these professionals are able to bill Medicare for the care they provide.
• In a proposal that PHA supported but has not yet been finalized by CMS, the agency made
several updates to the emergency preparedness regulations to minimize the burden on
providers. For instance, the rule would require just one emergency drill each year and permit
agencies to update their emergency plan every two years instead of annually.