CMS Is About to Publish More About Your Hospice. Have You Checked What It Says?

Hospice leaders spend a lot of time making sure the information we submit to CMS is complete and accurate, but there is another step that is becoming increasingly important. We also need to pay attention to what CMS is getting ready to publish about our organizations. Right now, there are two deadlines hospice leaders need to have on their calendars, and both involve information that can ultimately become part of the public-facing picture of your hospice.

On August 14, CMS released the Hospice Provider Preview Reports for the November 2026 Care Compare refresh in iQIES. Hospices have until September 14, 2026, to review those reports during the formal preview period. That gives agencies an opportunity to see the quality-measure results CMS intends to publicly report before the November refresh occurs.

Have You Looked at Your Hospice Provider Preview Report?

If you haven’t pulled your report yet, I would do it now. Don’t assume that because the information came from CMS, everything is necessarily going to look exactly the way you expect it to look.

This is information that will ultimately be available through Medicare Care Compare and the Provider Data Catalog. That means it isn’t just sitting inside CMS anymore. Patients and families can see this information. Referral sources can see it. Competitors can see it. Surveyors and other people evaluating your organization can see it as well.

Hospice leaders should go into iQIES and review the Hospice Provider Preview Report carefully. Compare what CMS is preparing to report with what you know about your organization and your own internal data. If something looks wrong, inconsistent, or simply doesn’t make sense, now is the time to investigate it, not after the information becomes public.

There is also one very practical thing I don’t want agencies to overlook. CMS recommends that providers download and save these reports. The reports are only retained in iQIES for approximately 60 days before they are removed, so don’t assume you can go back six months from now and pull the same report again. Download it, save it somewhere your compliance or QAPI team can find it, and maintain it as part of your quality records.

For the Provider Preview Report, I would make sure your leadership team does the following:

• Pull the Hospice Provider Preview Report from iQIES now.
• Review the quality results against your own internal information.
• Investigate anything that appears inaccurate or inconsistent.
• Download and permanently save a copy of the report.
• Complete your review before the September 14, 2026, deadline.

There Is Another HOPE Deadline Coming Right Behind It

While you’re looking at the Provider Preview Report, there is another date that needs to go on the calendar. For HOPE records with target dates during the second quarter of 2026, which is April 1 through June 30, the public-reporting data correction deadline is November 16, 2026.

This deadline is important because once that correction period closes, CMS essentially freezes those HOPE records for that public-reporting period. If an agency discovers an error afterward and corrects the underlying record, that later correction will not flow into a future Care Compare refresh for that reporting period.

That’s a pretty important distinction. You may be able to correct something in the clinical or submission record later, but you can’t assume that doing so will go back and change the information CMS uses for that particular public-reporting period.

Hospices have been so focused on implementing HOPE correctly that I think it’s easy to continue thinking about it primarily as another CMS assessment and compliance requirement. We need to start thinking beyond that.

HOPE data is becoming public-facing performance data.

That means the accuracy of what you’re submitting has implications beyond whether the assessment was completed on time. That information is becoming part of the picture CMS presents about your organization to the outside world.

Don’t Wait Until November to Start Reviewing Q2

November 16 may sound like plenty of time, but I wouldn’t wait. If there are problems with Q2 HOPE records, you want enough time to identify them, determine what happened, make appropriate corrections, and confirm that everything has been submitted properly before the correction window closes.

I would have someone looking at Q2 now. Review records with target dates from April 1 through June 30 and make sure the information is complete and accurate. If your team identifies something that needs to be corrected, deal with it while you still have time rather than discovering it days before the deadline.

The November deadline should trigger a few specific actions:

• Review Q2 2026 HOPE records now.
• Identify missing, inaccurate, or inconsistent information.
• Make appropriate corrections well before November 16.
• Confirm corrected information has been successfully submitted.
• Document your internal review as part of your QAPI and compliance activities.

This Is Bigger Than Two Deadlines

The bigger message here is that hospice data is becoming increasingly visible and increasingly important. We just talked about how federal agencies are expanding their use of data analytics to identify patterns and outliers across providers. Now we’re looking at another side of that same data environment, where hospice quality information is becoming part of the public picture of an organization.

Hospice leaders need to understand what their data says before someone outside the organization does. That includes claims data, quality data, HOPE data, Care Compare information, live discharges, length of stay, utilization, and all of the other information that collectively tells a story about your hospice.

The goal isn’t simply to make your numbers look good. The goal is to make sure the information is accurate, understand what it says about your organization, and address problems while you still have an opportunity to do something about them.

Right now, CMS is giving hospices that opportunity with these two deadlines. September 14 is your opportunity to review the Hospice Provider Preview Report before the November Care Compare refresh, and November 16 is the Q2 HOPE public-reporting data correction deadline.

Put both dates on your calendar, but more importantly, start the review now. You don’t want the first time you closely examine what CMS is saying about your hospice to be after everyone else can already see it.

The Amity Group Can Help

At The Amity Group, we work with hospice agencies across the country reviewing documentation, eligibility, compliance, and the issues that can create problems when an organization comes under outside scrutiny. An independent review can help identify inconsistencies and vulnerabilities that are sometimes difficult to see when you’re working inside the same records and data every day.

As hospice oversight becomes increasingly data-driven and more of that data becomes public-facing, knowing what your numbers say and making sure your records support the same clinical story is becoming an important part of protecting your organization.

To learn more about The Amity Group’s hospice audit and compliance support, visit AmityStaffing.com.