Medicare Hospice Program Integrity: What This Means for Providers - Recorded Webinar
Recorded On: 01/08/2025
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Medicare Hospice Program Integrity: What This Means for Providers
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has increased scrutiny of hospice programs related to growing concerns over fraud and integrity of hospice services provided. Hospice leaders must understand this new CMS survey landscape and the importance of survey readiness to avoid enforcement remedies and ensure regulatory compliance. CHAP will review CMS Hospice Program Integrity priorities, enforcement remedies, top survey findings and strategies for implementation of an effective survey readiness program.
- Describe the current survey/regulatory environment impacting hospice agencies, including increasing CMS survey scrutiny and oversight, CMS Hospice Program Integrity efforts, enforcement remedies, including, but not limited to the Special Focus Program.
- Identify top hospice survey findings impacting hospice agencies.
- Discuss strategies that can be utilized by hospice leadership and staff to implement an ongoing, hospice-wide compliance and survey readiness culture and processes to mitigate the potential for enforcement.
- Q and A/Discussion
Jennifer Kennedy
Vice President of Quality, Standards, and Compliance
CHAP - Community Health Accreditation Partner
Dr. Jennifer Kennedy is the Vice President of Quality, Standards, & Compliance. She spent many years as a leader and nurse in diverse healthcare settings with the past 25 years in hospice and palliative care.
Dr. Kennedy came to CHAP in 2021 with a vision of moving the organization’s quality forward as “the” accreditation partner of choice for the majority of community-based providers. She believes no matter what type of care a patient receives or how many times they receive care, every experience should be of the highest quality.
Kennedy leads the CHAP quality team and interacts with CMS related to regulatory and quality issues. Kennedy serves as faculty at national and state conferences, is widely published in medical trade journals, contributes to and reviews health care published materials, is a published author, and teaches graduate healthcare administration courses at the university level.
Kennedy serves as a member of the Hospice & Palliative Care Network of Maryland board of directors and has been honored by the UK’s St. Christopher’s Hospice as a Nursing Pioneer for their 2020 Palliative Care Nursing Project.
Dr. Kennedy has a Doctoral Degree in Health Care Education and Policy, a dual master’s degree in health education and Case Management, a bachelor’s degree in nursing, and is a Certified Healthcare Compliance Professional.
Kim Skehan
VP, Accrediation
CHAP
In her role as Vice President of Accreditation, Kimberly’s 30 years of clinical and operations experience and deep understanding of regulatory compliance, risk management, and survey readiness will enable her to effectively guide and support providers in the home health and hospice industry as they navigate the complex accreditation process. She serves as a valuable liaison for providers, fostering collaboration and communication with federal and state regulatory agencies to address industry challenges.
Kimberly is dedicated to education and providing comprehensive plan of correction follow-up support, empowering providers to enhance their service quality and adhere to the latest industry standards. Her work at CHAP contributes to the overall improvement of home health and hospice care, ensuring that providers consistently deliver the highest quality care to patients and their families.
She currently serves as a member of the Regulatory Committee of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the Hospice Quality Committee for the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC), and is a member of the Connecticut Association for Healthcare at Home, where she previously served as the VP for Clinical & Regulatory Services.
Kimberly holds an AHCC-accredited home care coding specialist (HCS-D) certification and is a certified OASIS reviewer (COS-C). She earned her B.S. degree in Nursing from Southern Connecticut State University and her M.S. degree in Nursing Administration from the University of Connecticut (UCONN), where she has also served as adjunct faculty for the School of Nursing.
