Hospice face-to-face (F2F) telehealth flexibility

The National Association for Homecare & Hospice (NAHC) is trying to gather some data and information from hospice members on the current legislative flexibility that allows hospices to perform the face-to-face (F2F) eligibility recertification visit using telehealth. The data will support our congressional advocacy to extend this flexibility, either temporarily (ie another two years) or permanently.

There are some congressional members and staff who harbor concerns that this allowance to do the F2F via telehealth is a fraud/program integrity risk that might fuel greater numbers of inappropriate recertifications of ineligible patients that could result in longer lengths of stay and higher rates of live discharges. NAHC believes these concerns are misplaced and do not reflect the reality of how the virtual F2F visits are being used today. We are seeking data and reflections on the F2F virtual allowance to respond to these concerns.

Please answer the questions below (please note that if you do not have hard data on these visits, your best back-of-the-envelope estimates are also very helpful. Any information gathered that gets shared with congressional staff will be anonymized and non-identifiable).
1.Name:
2.Title:
3.Organization name:
4.State(s) you operate in:
5.Does your hospice perform at least some hospice F2F visits virtually using telehealth?
6.If "Yes", do you have formal criteria for when you perform the F2F virtually vs. in-person? If so, what are examples of how you decide to use virtual vs in-person (ex. if the patient resides in a rural area)
7.If "No", what are the reasons you do not perform the F2F virtually?
8.If you perform some F2F visits virtually, over the last year (~ since the formal COVID Public Health Emergency [PHE] ended on May 11, 2023) what percentage of your monthly hospice F2F recertification visits are performed via telehealth?
9.If you perform some F2F visits virtually, have you noticed or does your data/tracking indicate that patients that get virtual F2F visits have non-negligible differences in lengths-of-stay or rates of live discharges, compared to patients that get in-person F2F visits?
10.Please share any additional insights, anecdotes or testimonials about how the virtual F2F flexibility is beneficial to your organization, and especially to the patients and families you serve