04/11/2024

The HOPE Tool: What’s Changing in the Assessment of Hospice Patients?

In a new article, LeadingAge reviews key components of the long-awaited HOPE tool and how it diverges from the Hospice Item Set in key ways. 

This Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 proposed hospice wage index rule contains the proposal to implement the Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) tool, a long-awaited standardized patient level data collection tool that CMS proposes to start on or after October 2025. The materials on the HOPE tool are largely separate from the rule.

In past rules, CMS described the HOPE as a new collection tool, however they amend their statement here and characterized it a modification of, and functional replacement for, the existing Hospice Item Set (HIS) structure. On implementation, the HIS would be replaced and hospices would no longer be required to collect and submit HIS data.

In this article, LeadingAge reviews key components of the HOPE tool and how they diverge from the HIS in keyways. LeadingAge also reviews domains and elements that came from the HOPE beta testing conducted in 2021 and how they will impact the tool.

Read more here by signing in with your LeadingAge member account.