WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 12, 2022)—The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and their contractor, Abt Associates, are recruiting additional Medicare-certified hospice providers to participate in a beta test of the draft hospice patient assessment instrument called Hospice Outcomes & Patient Evaluation (HOPE). Recruitment is ongoing and training will occur on a rolling basis. Data collection begins when training is completed and is expected to continue through fall 2022.
CMS is specifically seeking hospice providers with sufficient registered nurse, social worker and chaplain staffing to conduct one to two joint visits per week. For joint visits, two registered nurses visit one patient at the same time to complete the HOPE nurse assessment. Two social workers visit the patient at the same time to complete the HOPE social work assessment, and two chaplains visit the patient at the same time to complete the HOPE chaplain assessment. One of the two registered nurses, social workers and chaplains may attend their joint visit via video call, such as Zoom. HOPE assessments are completed at hospice admission, for symptom reassessment and at live discharge. Hospices currently participating in the beta test may be finding this difficult amidst the workforce shortage causing CMS to recruit more hospices.
CMS is still aiming for completion of the beta testing in early fall of this year. Should this occur, there may be time for CMS to analyze the results of the testing and formulate a proposal for use of the HOPE by all hospices in the FY 2024 proposed rule. This proposed rule would be posted in Spring 2023 for public review.
Joint visits are typical in beta testing standardized assessment instruments such as the HOPE for inter-rater reliability, but it is not expected that joint visits will be required when a HOPE tool is implemented in hospice.
Recruitment will continue until CMS reaches the desired number of participant, which has not been specified. Those interested in participating should email hopetesting@abtassoc.com.
