Archive for Cap Crisis
Who Fact-Checked MedPAC Staff’s Hospice Analysis?
Posted by: | CommentsMedPAC staff’s shoddy hospice analysis is misleading MedPAC Commissioners and healthcare policy; it also misses reform opportunities that would improve patient access and save money. Read More→
Open Letter to MedPAC
Posted by: | CommentsDear MedPAC:
You’re missing opportunities to improve hospice access, reform the cap and save $billions; instead, you’re giving Vitas a $100 million profit windfall Read More→
The Hospice Cap Crisis – A Tale of Four Hospices
Posted by: | CommentsPrologue: This is about the hospice Cap, a flawed 1982 law that harms patients, hospices and end-of-life care quality, and increases Medicare’s costs. The stories are real and current, but the names have been changed.
NewYork1, Oklahoma1, Georgia1 and Florida1 are four non-profit hospices. Read More→
Recently, National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization leaders refused to consider independent hospices’ proposals for hospice Cap Reform that would improve patient access to end-of-life care, save hundreds of independent hospices facing bankruptcy from Cap demands, and save Medicare money.
NHPCO leaders confirmed directly to NAHA that they will support no meaningful Cap reform in 2009. Instead, they will propose that Congress spend $150 million to protect large urban hospices from future Cap exposure by raising cap allowances, but only in big cities. Read More→
Entrenched Hospice Interests Oppose Hospice Cap Reform, and Any Hospice Reform. Why?
Posted by: | CommentsNAHA has developed a 2009 hospice interim reform proposal that would improve timely patient access to hospice, reform the hospice Cap and provide relief for quality independent hospices facing devastating Cap demands, harm no hospice or patient, and reduce Medicare’s total end-of-life care costs by as much as $1 billion annually. Read More→
Hospice Cap Crisis – Why are more and more hospices hitting the Cap?
Posted by: | CommentsHospice is the only Medicare benefit in which Congress has promised eligible beneficiaries unlimited care, but Medicare arbitrarily and retrospectively refuses to pay providers for those services. The result is the Hospice Cap Crisis, which is harming terminally ill Medicare beneficiaries, independent hospices and Medicare’s end-of-life care quality and costs. Read More→
U.S. District Judge Says Hospice Policy On Multi-Year Stays Is Invalid
Posted by: | Comments
New York Times concludes, “In Hospice Care, Longer Lives Mean Money Lost”
Posted by: | Comments“Hundreds of hospice providers across the country are facing the catastrophic financial consequence of what would otherwise seem a positive development: their patients are living longer than expected.
Over the last eight years, the refusal of patients to die according to actuarial schedules has led the federal government to demand that hospices exceeding reimbursement limits repay hundreds of millions of dollars to Medicare.”
