418.309—Hospice cap amount.
The hospice cap amount is calculated using the following procedures:
(a)
The cap amount is $6,500 per year and is adjusted for inflation or deflation for cap years that end after October 1, 1984, by using the percentage change in the medical care expenditure category of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for urban consumers that is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This adjustment is made using the change in the CPI from March 1984 to the fifth month of the cap year. The cap year runs from November 1 of each year until October 31 of the following year.
(b)
Each hospice's cap amount is calculated by the intermediary by multiplying the adjusted cap amount determined in paragraph (a) of this section by the number of Medicare beneficiaries who elected to receive hospice care from that hospice during the cap period. For purposes of this calculation, the number of Medicare beneficiaries includes—
(1)
Those Medicare beneficiaries who have not previously been included in the calculation of any hospice cap and who have filed an election to receive hospice care, in accordance with § 418.24, from the hospice during the period beginning on September 28 (35 days before the beginning of the cap period) and ending on September 27 (35 days before the end of the cap period).
(2)
In the case in which a beneficiary has elected to receive care from more than one hospice, each hospice includes in its number of Medicare beneficiaries only that fraction which represents the portion of a patient's total stay in all hospices that was spent in that hospice. (The hospice can obtain this information by contacting the intermediary.)