How to Increase the Value of Your Agency

The hospice mergers & acquisition market has been at an all-time high for the past 18-24 months, but some sellers seem to enjoy a higher valuation than others. Why? There are many reasons, beyond just size, why some agencies are worth more in the eyes of a buyer. In this session you will learn the most common formula buyers use to value hospice agencies. Most important, you will also learn how you can improve the real and/or perceived value of your agency long before you think about merging or being acquired. We will present the top ten common key characteristics of the most valuable hospice agencies in the marketplace today.

Budgeting – Why Do It?

Hospice is presented with many financial challenges, including volume, staffing, length of stay, cost, and reimbursement. It is vital that hospice budget appropriately each year and use key performance indicators on an ongoing basis to track and measure performance. The budget and KPI process is an essential step to communicate the financial impact of key decisions to clinical management and operations. Finance must collaborate with all functional areas to identify key revenue and cost drivers and develop realistic projections to drive the budget process. This session will focus on preparations of a hospice budget and methods to track and measure the agency’s progress through key performance indicators and dashboards.

How to Improve Profitability of Hospice GIP Facilities

While communities tend to be extremely generous during a hospice capital campaign, their generosity often fades once the facility becomes operational. It is a constant struggle for most general inpatient facilities to remain profitable when hospice reimbursement fails to cover the full cost of care. Hear from industry experts on how to overcome this obstacle with real-life examples and out-of-the-box ideas that will help you maximize revenue, minimize loss, and improve your bottom line.

Revenue Cycle Management

Effective management of the hospice revenue cycle is an evolving challenge, as cash flow optimization efforts must always be balanced against potential compliance threats. Individual states continue to adopt Medicaid managed care, significantly complicating the hospice revenue cycle, and the hospice benefit continues to draw interest from both Medicare and Medicaid program integrity contractors. As the possibility of Medicare Advantage coverage for hospice looms, it is important for hospices to take action to assess for potential revenue cycle optimization opportunities, as the consequences to cash flow can be significant if processes are not effectively managed. Additionally, the Medicare targeted probe and educate (TPE) process has begun to focus on hospice, significantly increasing the consequences of poor revenue cycle or related documentation management practices. Strategies for optimizing payer and process management and mitigating compliance risks by leveraging the use of technology will be examined, as will tactics for conducting proactive compliance audits. Industry benchmarks for revenue cycle key performance metrics will also be examined.

Takeaways from the HHS OIG’s Hospice Vulnerabilities Portfolio Report

In November 2018, the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report entitled “Vulnerabilities in the Medicare Hospice Affect Quality Care and Program Integrity – An OIG Portfolio.” The following month, in its semi-annual Report to Congress, the OIG described the Portfolio Report as “a seminal report…to spur improvements in the quality and integrity of care that hospices offer.” Although the report is based, in some cases, on dated information, it provides a blueprint for hospice risk assessment and compliance work plan development. Anyone interested in hospice compliance should be familiar with the report.

The Changing Landscape of Advanced Illness and Palliative Care

Policymakers, payers and providers have taken deliberate steps to advance our health system’s response to the care needs of people with advanced illness. These interventions include use of existing Part A and B benefits to deliver palliative care, the provision of palliative care as a supplemental benefit under Medicare Advantage (MA), and demonstration projects that include the Medicare Care Choices Model (MCCM) and a physician-based palliative care model. This session will explore key developments in this changing landscape, their potential and implications.

Lengths of Stay Management

Providing comprehensive, meaningful care to patients who are referred late in their disease trajectory is one of the most long-standing challenges of delivering hospice care – clinically, operationally, and financially. Faced with these challenges, some hospice programs have developed care protocols that prioritize the most essential components of care based on individual patient and family needs. This session will examine ways in which innovative care models for late admissions to hospice modify their admissions and treatment approaches to address care priorities and manage quality risk factors for these patients.

Home Health | Hospice | Business Leadership | Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM)