Home Health & Hospice Week

For-profits receive more reimbursement per beneficiary than non-profits. Here are the 2009 stats the HHS Office of Inspector General, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and other policy- and lawmakers are using to make decisions about hospice reimbursement: Total Medicare spending for hospice care for nursing facility residents grew by 69 percent from 2005 to 2009, increasing from $2.55 billion to $4.31 billion. The number of hospice beneficiaries in nursing facilities increased by 40 percent from 2005 to 2009, from 240,000 to 337,000. For-profits received 29 percent higher Medicare reimbursement per beneficiary than non-profits. Eight percent of hospices were so-called high-percentage hospices (those with two-thirds or more patients in nursing homes). Seventy-two percent of high-percentage hospices were for-profits. Almost all hospices (96 percent) furnished services to at least one NF resident. Thirty-seven percent of high-percentage hospices were in four states: Iowa, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. On average, high-percentage hospices were [...]