Changing requirements and a couple other questions

[hospiRN]

What does your hospice agency pay for mileage reimbursement? Do you get the 0.56/mile federal rate?

When you do your admissions, do you have to do a FAST scale for each admission?

Does your hospice pay for meal supplements (such as Glucerna/Ensure/Boost)?

[rubysasha, BSN]

I get 56 whopping cents per mile, only do FAST scores for dementia pts, and definitely NO on the nutritional shakes. I think administration would laugh me out of the office for suggestion that one lol.

[toomuchbaloney]

Some hospices will pay for supplemental feedings if they are the primary source of nutrition as ordered by the physician for the admitting diagnosis.

Your mileage is deductible if not paid at the federal rate.

There is no harm in documenting a FAST on every adult patient at admission, it certainly is not time consuming to address and provides a baseline.

[softrbreeze]

Our hospice pays 70% of the federally recommended mileage rate, we do a FAST scale on dementia pts only and we do provide nutritional supplements IF we have them for a related diagnosis such as stomach/esophageal cancer or severe protein-calorie malnutrition.

[Spidey's mom, ADN, BSN, RN]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

[Race Mom, ASN, RN]

I get a lousy $.20/mile (but can write off to federal tax rate), I don't do admissions yet (others cover this) but I don't see the harm in a FAST scale (I only do them on dementia routinely), and only a couple of pts we have are "grandfathered in" on the Ensure, as we are no longer providing it routinely.