CMS arranged and paid for an investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to look at quality measures pertaining to Hospice which found troubling results. Previously, the OIG had identified “that 18 percent of all hospices in a nationwide survey had serious deficiencies, like failing to vet staff.”
The GAO report concluded that …”eighty for-profits failed to send registered nurses, physicians or nurse practitioners to visit discharged patients even once in the last 72 hours of their lives, while only three nonprofits did the same.” The GAO, along with CMS, is now calling upon Congress “to give CMS more authority to create additional enforcement remedies for hospices not up to par.”
