Have Hospice Costs Increased After Implementation of the Hospice Quality–Reporting Program?

ContextThe Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospice Quality–Reporting Program introduced the requirement that hospices nationwide begin collecting and submitting standardized patient-level quality data on July 1, 2014.ObjectivesThis study examined whether this requirement has increased hospice total costs, general costs, and visiting services costs.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study using data from the 2012 and 2014 Medicare...