Advanced Search

Home Health & Hospice Week

Hospice:

Address This Major Unmet Need For Hospice Patients In SNFs

Published on Fri Feb 17, 2012

Don't fall short in managing shortness of breath in terminally ill patients. Hospices serving large numbers of patients in nursing homes are firmly in the feds' crosshairs. But you can use a recent study to show just how much hospice care is helping the nursing home patients you serve with one specific measure. A recent study from Brown University states that "for nursing home patients not in hospice, one in five family members reported an unmet need for shortness of breath while that was only 6.1 percent for people in hospice." But to tout this quantifiable measure of hospice care's benefits, you should make sure you're addressing the problem. Assessing shortness of breath "in this population of patients is no different from what should be the good practice of medicine, based on the context of where the patient is in their life's trajectory," advises physician Joel Policzer, national medical director [...]
You’ve reached your limit of free articles. Already a subscriber? Log in.
Not a subscriber? Subscribe today to continue reading this article. Plus, you’ll get:
  • Simple explanations of current healthcare regulations and payer programs
  • Real-world reporting scenarios solved by our expert coders
  • Industry news, such as MAC and RAC activities, the OIG Work Plan, and CERT reports
  • Instant access to every article ever published in Revenue Cycle Insider
  • 6 annual AAPC-approved CEUs
  • The latest updates for CPT®, ICD-10-CM, HCPCS Level II, NCCI edits, modifiers, compliance, technology, practice management, and more

Other Articles in this issue of

Home Health & Hospice Week

View All