Hospice Educational Resources
Medicare Learning Network® Publications
Expanded Prepayment Review of Existing Hospices in Arizona, California, Nevada, & Texas (PDF)
Learn about the goal of this initiative, how it affects you, what type of review we’ll perform, how we’ll notify and when it starts.
- Period of Enhanced Oversight for New Hospices in Arizona, California, Nevada, & Texas (PDF)
Learn about the goal of this initiative, how you can determine if you're affected and how you'll be notified, along with the timeframe of the enhanced oversight.
Creating an Effective Hospice Plan of Care (PDF)
Learn about the roles of the Interdisciplinary Group (IDG) and RN Coordinator, principles of care planning to promote quality care and common deficiencies related to Plan of Care (POC) implementation.
Enhancing RN Supervision of Hospice Aide Services (PDF)
Learn how often RNs should visit patients in their homes to assess hospice aide’s quality of care and services and documenting these visits to meet applicable CMS regulations and interpretive guidelines.
Safeguards for Medicare Patients in Hospice Care (PDF)
Learn your responsibilities to protect patients from abuse and neglect, survey and certification requirements and reporting abuse.
Provider Compliance Tips for Hospital Based Hospice
Learn certification requirements for billing, face to face encounters, and how to avoid claim denials.
Hospice Payment System & Coverage
Learn coverage and certification requirements, election periods and statements, and caps on payments.
Open Door Forum
Home Health, Hospice & Durable Medical Equipment Open Door Forum
The Home Health, Hospice & Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Open Door Forum (ODF) addresses the concerns of 3 unique health care areas within the Medicare & Medicaid Programs – Home Health PPS, the newly proposed competitive bidding for DME and the Medicare Hospice benefit.
Data Collection
A Technical Expert Panel (TEP) meeting was convened on September 10, 2025, to discuss potential changes to the Medicare Hospice Wage Index. The purpose of the TEP meeting was to seek feedback from panelists on a proposed alternative to the current hospice wage index, which would utilize new data sources. This TEP meeting represented the first step in acquiring stakeholder and expert input to inform these refinements as CMS analyzes and supports potential changes to the hospice payment system. The TEP summary report, which summarizes the discussion and recommendations of the Technical Expert Panel, as well as the TEP technical report, which provides a detailed examination of the discussed alternative approaches, may be found at the links below: