Home Health & Hospice Week

Pilot will take a decade to show results.

Money isn’t the only concern when it comes to Medicare’s new concurrent care demonstration project for hospices.

The Medicare Care Choices Model demonstration project “still falls short of a fully-integrated care model for people with severe illness who want to continue curative treatment,” judges Forbes. In traditional hospice, the interdisciplinary team handles the patient’s care from one focal point. “When hospice works as it should, a patient can get the care she needs with a single phone call,” it says. 

For the Care Choices model to succeed, “hospice providers, home care agencies, primary care physicians, and specialists will have to work closely and cooperatively on critical issues such as pain management or after-hours care,” Forbes notes. “In some cases, hospitals and nursing facilities will also be involved.”

Thus far, “the fee-for-service health system has struggled mightily to achieve that level of coordination,” it says.

Heather Wilson with Weatherbee Resources in Hyannis, Mass., also questions the sheer length of time it has taken to get the demo going. After all, it was required by the Affordable Care Act in 2010. “It has taken five years to get rolling,” and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services plans to take another five to finish the project — “a whole 10 years,” Wilson protests. “The industry is in such need of policy reform that 10 years is insane.”