Medicare Cuts Hit Hospice Care

Hospice care organizations are bracing for their first major reductions in reimbursement rates in 25 years.

Medicare currently pays for nearly everything a hospice patient needs. Now, with a $2.3 billion cut looming on October 1st, hospice facilities across the country are making plans to tighten their budgets.

Jan Jones, CEO of Alive Hospice, Middle Tennessee’s largest provider, says the reduction will cost her organization one million over three years. But instead of cutting patients or services they’ll lean more heavily on volunteers.

“They’re absolutely critical to our mission. One of the things for example, is manning the phones in the residence and so that saves us from having to hire somebody in the answering phones.”

Volunteers also save staff time by visiting with hospice patients and their families. Carla Ayer used hospice care when her husband died from a malignant brain tumor. Now she is a volunteer, counseling families going through a similar experience.

“I will start off by telling these people that my husband was here five years ago and I know what you’re going through. And I craved that when was here, and the first time I let my guard down and opened up, a volunteer sat with me for three hours. That just meant the world to me so I wanted to do that for somebody, too.”

Large hospice providers, like Alive, will able to weather the budget cuts, but they’re still fighting to get them stopped. The National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization has filed a lawsuit to halt the reductions.