Medicare Considers Changing Hospice Care Policy

Medicare officials are considering changes in the hospice benefit to stop the federal government from paying twice for care given to dying patients. But patient advocates and hospice providers fear a new policy could make the often difficult decision to move into hospice care even tougher. To reduce the chances of these duplicative payments, Medicare officials have announced that they are examining whether to assume “virtually all” the care hospice patients receive should be covered under the hospice benefit. Medicare has been paying millions of dollars in recent years to non-hospice providers for care for terminally ill patients under hospice care, according to government reports. Read more here.

Source: USA Today/Kaiser Health News

David Wingate is an elder law attorney practicing in Frederick and Montgomery Counties, Maryland. The practice consists of wills, powers of attorneys, trusts, asset protection and Medicaid.