Hospice Reimbursement May Disincentivize Care for Expensive Patients

A study by the Commonwealth Foundation found that patients with expensive treatment, such as palliative chemotherapy, were more likely to be turned away from hospice facilities.

Some findings include

• The study found 61 percent of hospices would not accept patients who wanted chemotherapy, which can be used to help ease their pain in their dying days.
• Nearly a third of hospices would not take patients who were getting palliative radiation or taking pain medication through a catheter operated by an automatic pump.

Read a summary of the study here

Read the abstract here