Posted on 11/27/2007 6:50:27 AM PST by shrinkermd
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.
The charges are assessed retrospectively, so in most cases the money has long since been spent on salaries, medicine and supplies. After absorbing huge assessments for several years, often by borrowing at high rates, a number of hospice providers are bracing for a new round that they fear may shut their doors.
One is Hometown Hospice, which has been providing care here since 2003 to some of the most destitute residents of Wilcox County, the poorest place in Alabama.
The locally owned, for-profit agency, which serves about 60 patients, mostly in their homes, had to repay the government $900,000, or 27 percent of its revenues, from its first two years of operation, said Tanya O. Walker-Butts, a co-owner. Its profits were wiped out in the time it took to open the demand letters, Ms. Walker-Butts said.
Hometown paid its first assessment with a bank loan. When the bank declined credit for the second year, the hospice structured a five-year payment plan with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that administers the program, at 12.5 percent interest.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well put. I agree with you there.
UH OH...That's the secret handshake to be deemed a member of the CULTURE OF DEATH here.
*************
There's the Hildy we know and love.
“Hospice is nice if done well, but it sucks getting old - Massive heart
attack is the way to go”
I’m not an MD...but from what little I gather from two friends
that have witnessed such a thing...
a massive brain aneurysm seems to LIKELY be the quiet and painless route.
The father of a friend was a high-school principal in western Oklahoma.
A teacher came into the principal’s office, opened his mouth
to speak...
then just fell to the floor like a rag doll that a child had let go.
Doctors told my friend’s dad that the teacher was as good as dead
when he hit the floor.
I hope you are never faced with the necessity of considering hospice. I can only tell you that it was a wonderful facility that made the process as peaceful and painless as possible for my mother. I know that she is experiencing an eternity with Christ and I look forward to seeing her someday.
I don’t think death is the worse thing that can happen to an individual who knows the Savior.
Thank you. I hope I don’t either.
SOYLENT GREEN!
Hey, I resemble that remark.
We helped my father fight off hospice to his final day. The surgeons messed up his surgery, the doctors didn’t want to become involved, and they all tried to throw him away into hospice. We fought and fought them for months. Dad was pleading with them all to try a treatment. Finally, we found doctors willing to treat him, and the hospital’s ethics committee tried to stop them. After all the fighting, they gave him one treatment, but, by then, it was too late. The cancer was too far gone. He fought like a warrior to his last moment.
The cancer patients are living longer because they’re pushing them into hospice early. The answer is “open access” hospice. Some insurance companies have plans that cover it now - open access means doctors have determined you have six months or less to live, but you won’t be denied treatment or the chance to survive.
I’m so sorry. Your Dad sounds like quite a guy.
I gotta say...I’m amazed at some of the vitriol on this thread.
My mother passed away of cancer a few years back, and at the end, we had home hospice care. We had help from about three different hospice nurses, and all of them were wonderful, gentle, caring people. Thanks to them, Mom was as comfortable as was possible at that stage in her illness, she was able to be in familiar surroundings, and her death was peaceful - I’d even say beautiful.
It isn’t easy work, caring for the dying. And I’ll always, always be grateful that they were there to do it.
You, like most liberals, have a very serious problem with projection. Where have I ever talked about people dying alone? Are you referring to the 50 MILLION babies that you and your ilk have killed in the past 35 years? Are you talking about people like Terri Schiavo when you and your ilk supported her loving family being removed from her bedside at gunpoint so she was forced to die alone with her murderer?
socialism does not work, socialism does not work, socialism does not work, socialism does not work, socialism does not work, socialism does not work,...
we liked the social worker/spiritual person.....she actually sang songs for my mom and my dad....they really liked her and she was an inspiration for both my mom and dad, and she promised she would be back....well, she never came back....
she and the chief nurse promised as well to be at the funneral to give support to my father.....of course, neither showed up nor did either ever talk to my dad again, and he really needed the emotional support...
for my mom to lie there for close to 3 months, knowing she was dying, yet still waking up every morning....that must have been so very hard on her...she was the type that would have liked to "get on with it"....
I am rethinking Hospice myself....okay, so let's not do chemo or radiation but can we at least talk HOPEFUL and that Jesus can perform miracles?????<
but to lie down without hope, ever....that is cruel and inhumane....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.