Nursing homes, hospice providers, and inpatient psychiatric facilities would all see Medicare pay hikes next year under proposals recently released by the Biden administration.
Hospice providers would get an additional $705 million in Medicare payments in fiscal year 2025, while nursing homes would get an additional $196.5 million, as part of a proposed 4.1% rate increase.
The proposed hospice rate hike would represent a 2.6% boost in the payment rate, according to the proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Another proposed rule calls for inpatient psychiatric facilities to receive a 2.6%, or $70 million, increase in Medicare payment rates.
Medicare’s hospice benefit covers end-of-life care and services for beneficiaries who are terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course. Beneficiaries who enroll in the hospice benefit agree to forgo Medicare coverage for conventional treatment of their terminal illness.
In 2020, more than 1.7 million Medicare beneficiaries received hospice care. In 2021, Medicare paid about $28.5 billion for about 1.7 million nursing home stays for 1.2 million fee-for-service beneficiaries, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
