New Hospice Quality Regulations Make Collaboration Vital

​With the new quality regulations affecting hospice care, long-term care facilities and hospices "need to start collaborating a little more aggressively," said Perry Farmer, president, Crossroads Hospice, during "New Quality Regulations and How They Affect Your Hospice Residents in a Long-Term Care Setting," an October 25, 2012, webinar hosted by Long-Term Living. Last month, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) began requiring hospices to collect data on National Quality Forum measures related to pain screening, pain assessment, and comfortable dying. All hospice patients will be assessed for pain issues on admission, and those who have some level of pain will be reassessed 48 hours later. The percentage of patients still experiencing pain after 48 hours will be reported to CMS. More information is available on CMS's website; the final rule was published in the November 8, 2012, Federal Register. Although these measures relate to the hospice, not the long-term care facility, "you want to make sure that you have good quality," Farmer said. One reason collaboration may be difficult is because long-term care usually aims for rehabilitation or maintenance, whereas hospice expects the resident to decline.