Medicare spending on patients in assisted-living facilities has skyrocketed in recent years as “financial incentives” embedded in the federal healthcare program have driven hospices to target the most lucrative beneficiaries and raised questions about whether those patients are "receiving the services they need during the last months of their lives."
Because patients in assisted-living facilities relied on hospice care for much longer and at much higher Medicare rates than those in their own homes or in nursing homes, hospices may have sought beneficiaries in the settings that “offer ... the greatest financial gain,” the Department of Health and Human Services inspector general said in a report.
Such targeting may have caused hospices to focus mainly on patients with illnesses that were easier to manage and those slated to live longer in order to collect bigger payments from Medicare.
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An elderly friend at the end of her life looked at me and said "I didn't know that when hospice is called in they STOP treating you for wellness and just assist you while you die." I would have thought she would have known that ...but she did not. She was shocked and she felt that she could have had a "fighting chance" of living longer if she had had an educated choice. Having said that...I think Hospice is wonderful and I believe that they really helped her a great deal ...but I wish she had known the reality of the situation. Maybe she had been told , but forgot.
ReplyDeleteBut you said the friend was "at the end of her life". That is exactly what hospice is for.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't Medicare, or any other insurance for that matter, pay the same fees no matter where a patient is? I've also heard that providers in different states and rural vs. urban areas are paid different amounts. It shouldn't matter if a patient is in a nursing home or an outpatient, in rural West Virginia or New York City.
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