Data / Federal rules / 2026-15686
Medicare Program; FY 2027 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update and Hospice Quality Reporting Program Requirements
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published this final rule in the Federal Register on August 3, 2026. It took effect on October 1, 2026.
SpecStream is the live web data engine for teams and agents. It reads every rule and proposed rule in the Federal Register each morning, and this page is that reading. Name your industry once and new rules, comment deadlines and effective dates arrive in your sheet, CRM, Slack or agent as they are published.
What the agency says
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 construction of a hospice specific wage index; and the overlap between hospice and medical aid in dying laws. Finally, this rule finalizes changes to the Hospice Quality Reporting Program.
Key facts
- Document number
- 2026-15686
- Type
- Final rule
- Action
- Final rule
- Agency
- Health and Human Services Department; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
- Published
- August 3, 2026
- Takes effect
- October 1, 2026
- Dates
- These regulations are effective on October 1, 2026.
- Docket
- CMS-1851-F
- Regulation ID (RIN)
- 0938-AV78
- Code of Federal Regulations
- 42 CFR 418
- Topics
- Health facilities; Hospice care; Medicare; Reporting and recordkeeping requirements
- Pages
- 59
Other documents from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Everything from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services · Rules on health facilities · Rules on medicare · Rules on reporting and recordkeeping requirements · Published in August 2026
Read from the Federal Register API, last updated 2026-10-24. The document on federalregister.gov is the official record; dates and dockets can change through later corrections. Free to reuse with credit to SpecStream under CC BY 4.0.