Participation in financial database disappoints

Disappointingly slow response by hospice providers to a national hospice financial database pilot project by the Hospice Associa-tion of America (HAA) in Washington, DC, underscores the challenges the industry will face next year when the Health Care Financing Administration reinstates the Medicare hospice cost report. And that doesn’t even take into account the greater challenge of amassing the uniform nationwide cost and utilization data that will be needed for the industry to persuade managed care payers and policy makers to preserve hospice benefits.

HAA’s pilot database includes basic service, utilization, cost, and revenue data, derived from its Hospice Financial Record-keeping Manual. Participating providers receive HAA’s cost report, instructions, and an electronic spreadsheet on diskette, all free in exchange for supplying confidential data to the project’s consulting firm, Flikers Professional Services Inc. in Rochester, NY.

Seventy-eight hospices agreed to participate in the pilot phase and submit data to Flikers by July 14, but only 10 followed through, says HAA executive director Diane M. Jones, MSW, ACSW. As a result, the deadline for the project has been extended.

"It’s our hope that we’d still be able to produce reports containing aggregate data for each of these data elements. But it’s been a struggle," she adds. "We’re always looking for volunteers. I’m willing to give the software and manual to any provider that agrees to give data back," Jones says.

[Editor’s note: For more information, contact Diane Jones at (202) 546-4759.]