Hospice & Home Health News 2026Apr02

LeadingAge, Collaborators Send CMS HOPE Recommendations for 2026

On March 30, LeadingAge joined the National Alliance for Care at Home, and the National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation in a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requesting critical updates to the Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) tool and guidance documents. First and foremost, the letter reiterated previous requests that CMS waive the compliance threshold for the first quarter of HOPE reporting. With the implementation of the tool coinciding with the October 2025 government shutdown, we have credible concerns that many hospices might not have met this threshold because CMS supports were affected by the government shutdown. CMS has not explicitly conveyed they are open to waiving the threshold, so we continued to advocate on this. Second, the letter asked CMS to clearly define assessment throughout the manual specifically because many states do not allow LPNs or LVNs to complete assessments in their scope of practices, making it difficult to complete the symptom follow up visits as intended by CMS. Finally, the letter presses CMS for clear directions on the symptom follow up visit and what is allowed in the reasons a visit might be missed, including inclement weather as well as situations where a patient may be traveling outside their home hospice's service area.

Treasury Department Issues Proposed Rule on Fraud Reporting and Advisory on Health Care Fraud

On March 30, the U.S. Department of Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) submitted a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) proposing to fully implement a whistleblower program by establishing a framework for offering incentives and protections to encourage individuals to report tips on fraud-related violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, U.S. sanctions programs administered by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and several other laws critical to safeguarding the U.S. financial system and national security. The NPRM proposes:

• procedures for whistleblowers to share information about potential violations in a timely and secure manner, including for submitting an award application;
• eligibility criteria for making awards and the process for adjudicating award applications;
• awards of 10 – 30% of collected monetary penalties for individuals whose tip leads to a successful enforcement action by Treasury or the Department of Justice; and

·        protections for whistleblowers who provide information to FinCEN’s whistleblower program.

The Treasury Department also released a press release that in addition to the announcement about the rule specifically discussed an advisory they issued urging financial institutions to be vigilant about fraud schemes targeting government health care benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid. LeadingAge will evaluate whether to comment on the rule in the coming days.

Here is your weekly  Home Health Weekly Recap from National.

Here is your weekly  Hospice Weekly Recap from National.