Hospice & Home Health News 2026Mar5

CMS Ends iQIES Manual Data Entry Access for Home Health Agencies

As part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) ongoing efforts to modernize and streamline data submission and assessment management, CMS is officially discontinuing the front-end user interface for iQIES. This is used by home health agencies for manually creating assessments. This will be effective April 1, 2026. Home health agencies will not be able to use this software to directly input assessment data for OASIS assessments with target dates on or after 4/1/2026. Prior assessments (dated 1/1/2025 – 3/31/2026) will be accepted until 12/31/2026. Future data will need to be uploaded in the correct format. For additional information and questions, visit the Home Health Data Specifications page. 

Hospice FY2027 Proposed Rule Received by OMB

On February 26, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) submitted the FY 2027 Hospice Wage Index, Payment Rate Update, and Quality Reporting Requirements (CMS-1851) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for their review. This is the final step before a proposed rule is released.

Here is your weekly  Home Health Weekly Recap from National.

Here is your weekly  Hospice Weekly Recap from National.