Save Our Rates!

Most people don’t know that hospice is covered by Medicare.

Under the Medicare Hospice Benefit, hospices receive a fixed amount for each day a patient is enrolled in hospice.  With that, the hospice provides all the services – nurse, social worker, home health aide, volunteer, medication, therapies, home equipment, medical supplies, 24-hour on-call services, coordination with the patient’s physician, and all the administrative staff necessary to support the operation – required by Medicare and good hospice care.

For Calvert Hospice, the Medicare Hospice Benefit has not kept pace with the growth in the cost of drugs and equipment, the salaries needed to retain the best and most compassionate staff, plus all of the other costs to run a top-quality operation.

For the first time in 25 years, Medicare wants to cut Hospice payment rates.

The cuts the Administration has proposed will take a little off the top next year, more the next and more the year after that.  Altogether, these cuts will amount to $2.3 billion.

Hospice is one of the most cost-effective services Medicare provides.  A recent independent Duke University study demonstrated that on average, hospice saves Medicare more than $2,300 per patient.  The Duke researchers go on to say, “Given that hospice has been widely demonstrated to improve quality of life of patients and family members…the Medicare program appears to have a rare situation whereby something that improves quality of life also appears to reduce costs.”

Let Medicare know that you want hospice to be able to continue to provide the highest quality end-of-life care.  Register your opposition to hospice rate cuts by June 28, 2008.  To comment, write to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in one of the following ways:

1.      Electronically. You may submit electronic comments at http://www.regulations.gov. Under “Comment or Submission” enter the code CMS-1548-P.  Submit your comment in the space provided.

2.      By regular mail. You may mail written comments (one original and two copies) to the following address only: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: CMS-1548-P, P.O. Box 8012, Baltimore, MD 21244-1850.  Please allow sufficient time for mailed comments to be received before the close of the comment period.

3.      By express or overnight mail. You may send written comments (one original and two copies) to the following address only: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: CMS-1548-P, Mail Stop C4-26-05, 7500 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21244-1850.

For more information, you can log on to http://www.nhpco.org.