Response to Misleading WaPo Hospice Article: Part the Second

(If you missed Part 1, you can read it here. If you don’t have time, here is the quick summary. The Washington Post wrote an article December 26th, 2013 claiming hospice care was taking billions from Medicare presumably in waste and fraud. This series offers a critical review debunking the claims and offering a more insightful view of the challenges hospices face. - Ed. Sinclair) 6) Did these hospices enroll patients inappropriately? This is the element that most needs to be addressed. The only real way to assess this is by checking the documentation for the individual hospices in question. If there had been a report of widespread denials for inappropriate hospice admissions, it would have done much more to support the assertion that hospice firms were draining money from Medicare. That would mean that they were doing so outside of the current rules rather than within them. The lawsuits mentioned will help bring clarity here. Do I doubt that there is fraud involved in some hospices? Not in the slightest bit. One could expect some level of fraud, since there is a significant amount of money involved. If these hospices were clearly admitting patients outside of the regulations, then they should be punished. If the situation is widespread enough, then steps need to be put in place to prevent it. This does not come close to justifying the “draining billions” headline, though. It also doesn’t come close to being a few rotten apples that spoil the bunch. If the cases go...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Carer Workers Authors: Source Type: blogs