Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate passed the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Acto of 2014 (IMPACT Act), a bill that if approved by President Obama, will step up the regulation and oversight of hospice care in the U.S. The legislation (H.R. 4994) is supported by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the hospice community.

A major change provided for in the IMPACT Act is for more frequent surveys and inspections of hospice providers, something for which the hospice community has been advocating for over a decade. Under the new law, all Medicare-certified hospices will be surveyed every three year over the next decade or more.

“Currently, hospices can go eight years or more without ever being surveyed, which is far too long,” said J. Donald Schumacher, NHPCO president and CEO. “More consistent surveys, and the process providers go through to prepare for them, will help hospices and ultimately benefit the patients and families in their care.”

In addition, the new legislation will call for reviews of some hospice care providers that care for patients more than 180 days. The minimum number of patients in this category for qualifying for the review has not yet been determined. The goal is to ensure that so-called “long stay” patients are receiving appropriate care in facilities that historically have cared for shorter-term cancer patients.

The legislation contains a provision that will “align hospice reimbursement and the hospice aggregate financial cap to a common inflationary index,” according to a statement.

“Under NHPCO’s leadership, the hospice community has been on the frontlines of advocating for increased transparency, program integrity, and accountability,” said Schumacher. “We believe that the hospice provisions included in the IMPACT Act are critically important steps in this direction.”

The NHPCO estimates that more than 1.5 million dying Americans receive hospice care each year.