In the past years, there has been a major increase in for-profit hospices and according to a study published last month in the journal Health Affairs titled: “A Positive Association Between Hospice Profit Margin And The Rate At Which Patients Are Discharged Before Death.” The study was researched from a sample of 1,439 freestanding hospices, as well as for-profit, chain-owned and nonprofit facilities, and their live discharge rates. The report found that live discharge rate rose from 2000 t0 2014 from a median of 13.7% to 18.7% and did not find a cause except when measured against good care vs poor care quality. Hospice care helps patients diagnosed with a terminal illness. Those individuals have been certified by a physician as likely to have a short time span for living – usually six months or less. There may be times, if the care quality is adequate, that some patients may live longer surpassing the diagnosed life expectancy. Outside of those reasons the increase in profits at hospices has received attention from regulators, prompting action from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in a proposed rule that found that hospices were determining coverage based on reimbursement and cost instead of patient needs and preferences, according to the study. For more details on the study read more here.
