Home Health & Hospice Week

Study highlights fissures within hospice industry. A new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association may give policy- and lawmakers more ammunition to tinker with hospice payment rates. For-profit hospices, compared with nonprofit hospices, had a lower proportion of patients with cancer and a higher proportion of patients with dementia and other noncancer diagnoses, based on 2007 data, says the article in the Feb. 2 issue of JAMA. For-profit hospices' patients had a significantly longer length of stay and received less visits from nurses and social workers, found the study authored by physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. "Compared with nonprofit hospice agencies, for-profit hospice agencies had a higher percentage of patients with diagnoses associated with lower-skilled needs and longer lengths of stay," the study concludes. Non-Profits, For-Profits Face Off The study is making cracks within the hospice industry visible. "The study confirms reports [...]