The Hospice Insider | September 30, 2016 Most patients with a terminal illness don’t have to pay for hospice care. Medicare through the Medicare Hospice Benefit, Medicaid, The Veterans Health Administration, and private insurance companies cover hospice. The Medicare Hospice…
Modern Healthcare | April 21, 2016 The CMS has dropped three payment rules that propose increased payments to skilled-nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and hospice care, and implemented new quality measures. The agency Thursday proposed nearly doubling the increase skilled-nursing…
Toledo Blade | April 17, 2016 Late morning light slithers through narrow windows without bars on the second floor of Franklin Medical Center in Columbus, where terminally ill and other sick prisoners from throughout Ohio are housed. Dozens of prisoners…
myPalmBeachpost.com | April 8, 2016 By law, Medicare hospice spending is supposed to care for people diagnosed with six months or less to live, but an advisory group’s latest report to Congress shows well over half of the money goes…
The New York Times | April 2, 2016 WASHINGTON — Hospices often bill Medicare for a higher level of care than patients need, and Medicare often pays twice for the prescription drugs provided to people who are terminally ill, federal…
AL.com | April 4, 2016 An order last week by a federal judge in Birmingham tossing out a whistleblower lawsuit that claims hospice provider AseraCare fraudulently billed Medicare millions of dollars for patients will be appealed, an attorney for the…
Pittsburg Post Gazette | March 27, 2016 As Kris Mamula’s recent article rightfully pointed out, hospice fraud does exist (“Hospice Fraud Becoming a Costly Problem for Medicare,” March 6). It is, however, a small fraction of the $65 billion in overall…
John Mininno slaps two pieces of paper onto an overhead projector. “Look at this,” he says. “You see how one form is a photocopy of the other—with just the date changed? It’s exactly the same paper!” The printouts are mere…
NHPCO offers some insight and key message points about hospice (Alexandria, Va) – Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal looks at long-stay hospice patients receiving care under the Medicare hospice benefit. The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization offers…
In October 2014, Medicare adopted new policy (not a statute, not a regulation) requiring hospices to submit any notice of election within five days of admission. Medicare backed this policy (lacking any force of law) with substantial apparent teeth: “In…