Final rule: Medicare Program; FY 2027 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update and Hospice Quality Reporting Program Requirements
Agencies: Health and Human Services Department, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — This final rule updates the hospice wage index, payment rates, and aggregate cap amount for fiscal year 2027. This final rule also includes an analysis of Medicare non-hospice spending, including details regarding a hospice service and spending variation index, and finalizes the requirement that hospices provide the hospice election statement addendum to all Medicare beneficiaries at the time of hospice election. Additionally, this rule finalizes conforming changes to discharge from hospice care regulations and changes to the face-to-face encounter regulations. This final rule also includes a summary of comments received on our requests for information regarding community- based palliative care; the…
Evidence
1 sources- 01https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/03/2026-15686/medicare-program-fy-2027-hospice-wage-index-and-payment-rate-update-and-hospice-quality-reporting
Federal Register
trust 0.98“This final rule updates the hospice wage index, payment rates, and aggregate cap amount for fiscal year 2027. This final rule also includes an analysis of Medicare non-hospice spending, including details regarding a hospice service and spending variation index, and finalizes the requirement that hospices provide the hospice election statement addendum to al…”
Across the aisle
Voices on this issue
Independent voices from different starting points, on the record about this kind of action. The framework grades behavior, not party — these quotes come from people who would say the same thing under any administration.
From the right
“The first job of an opposition party in a free country is to win elections fairly. The first job of a governing party is to lose them gracefully when the time comes. Both are non-negotiable.”
Mona Charen
Conservative columnist; author of 'Sex Matters' and former speechwriter in the Reagan administration.
From Charen's essay 'What Are We Conserving?' The Bulwark, 'What Are We Conserving?'