Obama Signs Rare Bipartisan Health Bill On Hospice, Post-Acute Quality

President Obama today signed bipartisan legislation into law that will bring more frequent surveys to hospice providers as part of a broader bipartisan action designed to increase quality, transparency and accountability to the post-acute care industry.

Unlike the Affordable Care Act, which garnered no Republican support when it passed both houses of Congress four years ago, key GOP leaders were supportive of the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act, or IMPACT Act.

The law builds on quality aspects woven into the ACA by increased quality, transparency and accountability by increasing the frequency of surveys to hospice providers and streamlining quality measures for post-acute providers in general. The White House also said in a statement that the IMPACT Act facilitates patients comparing outcomes across different care settings and funds a key improvement to nursing home oversight, the collection of staffing data.

The new law covers myriad providers of post-acute care including skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation centers and home health agencies that will soon have to begin reporting standardized patient assessment data and quality information to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The Medicare program, like most private health insurance companies, is moving away from paying providers via the traditional fee-for-service system to more value-based care that reimburses post-acute providers on accountability and patient outcomes rather than paying these providers no matter the quality of care provided.

Patrick Conway, Deputy Administrator and Chief Medical Officer of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the IMPACT Act standardizes assessment data across the post-acute care setting.

The law includes a provision that requires hospice surveys at least once every three years, Conway said during a call earlier this afternoon with health reporters to discuss the new law.

The language in the IMPACT Act includes key parts of hospice legislation that had been championed by U.S. Reps. Tom Reed, a Republican from Upstate New York and a California Democrat, Mike Thompson.

Supporters of the legislation say it would weed out bad apples from the industry and shine more light on all hospice providers. The industry sees the survey process itself as important so providers would have a better idea how to make improvements and know what is expected.

In recent years, the hospice and post-acute care industries have faced mounting criticism. Last year, for example, a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found that frequency of surveys of hospice were inconsistent and it was common that facilities would go years without an evaluation. Some facilities could go 8 years without a survey.

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Obama Signs Rare Bipartisan Health Bill On Hospice, Post-Acute Quality