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COMMENTS: Just Six Months to Live
CBS' Thalia Assuras found flaws in Medicare funding for care of the terminally ill which is half as expensive in a hospice as in hospital ($21K per patient vs $46K). Congress, therefore, mandated no limits for hospices yet Medicare decided to cut off reimbursement if a hospice patient takes longer than six months to die. Assuras introduced us to the Seyah Hospice in the Mississippi Delta that has to repay $3m to Medicare because its patients took too long to die. Hospice owners "want Congress to freeze their debts until it can come up with a way to pay for extended hospice care."
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