The new Hospice Program for Evaluating Payment Patterns Electronic Report (PEPPER), with statistics through September 2013, is now available, CMS says in a message to providers.
CMS has made two changes to the report. First, the “Live Discharges” target area now includes all beneficiary episodes, not just those with a length of stay less than 25 days, the agency notes.
Another difference: The “State” comparison group now includes all hospices in a state. Previously, the “State” comparison group included all hospices in a state that were in the same MAC jurisdiction. As a result, state percentiles will differ from the previous PEPPER release.
Access your report and more information at
. PEPPER contractor TMF Health Quality Institute is no longer mailing paper copies of the report, so you’ll have to download it from the site, TMF says.