After weeks of uncertainty, CMS has published its correction to the FY2027 hospice wage index and payment rates. The notice was filed September 29 and published in the Federal Register on September 30, one day before the October 1 effective date. If you have been holding your October revenue projections, here is what changed and what to do about it.
What went wrong, and what changed
CMS disclosed on September 8 that it had made a technical error in the wage index calculation. According to the correction notice, a current inpatient hospital was mistakenly treated as one that had converted to Rural Emergency Hospital status. CMS restored that hospital’s data and recalculated the wage indexes across the affected areas. The notice also adjusts specific values, including Hinesville, Georgia and rural North Dakota.
The good news for most agencies is that the dollar movement in the national rates is very small. Comparing the corrected rates to the ones published in the August 3 final rule:
- Routine home care, days 1–60: $236.35 to $236.33 (down $0.02)
- Routine home care, day 61 and after: $186.35 to $186.33 (down $0.02)
- Continuous home care (24 hours): $1,726.50 to $1,726.16 (down $0.34)
- Inpatient respite care: $545.98 to $545.93 (down $0.05)
- General inpatient care: $1,231.63 to $1,231.51 (down $0.12)
Your actual payment depends on your local wage index, so the effect on your agency may differ from these national figures. Check your CBSA’s corrected value directly.
What to do this week
Update your rate tables. Load the corrected rates and wage index into your billing system and your budget model. If your EHR or billing vendor loaded the August numbers, ask when they will push the update.
Watch your MAC. Claims for services on or after October 1 may have been priced on the original numbers, depending on when your Medicare Administrative Contractor loads the correction. Keep a list of October claims and confirm the paid amount against the corrected rate. Small per-day differences add up across a census.
Do not rewrite your whole forecast. For most agencies, a two-cent change in routine home care is not a planning event. The bigger risks to your cash flow this quarter are still census, length of stay, and the aggregate cap.
Document the true-up. If any October payments are later adjusted, record them as a separate reconciling item rather than burying them in revenue. Clean documentation makes month-end close, and your year-end tax and audit work, much easier.
Bottom line
This correction closes out a stressful month with a small result. Load the new rates, verify your local wage index, and spot-check October remittances. If you would like help building a payment-variance check into your month-end close, we are happy to talk.
Sources: Federal Register, “FY 2027 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update…; Correction” (FR Doc. 2026-20067, 9/30/2026); CMS Hospice News & Announcements; Hospice News, 9/8/2026.