Home Health & Hospice Week

Reports of abuse and neglect of hospice patients may increase following Medicare’s issuance of a document on the matter, and whistleblower lawsuits could potentially go up too.

In a new five-page “Safeguards For Medicare Patients In Hospice Care” fact sheet, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reviews hospice requirements, the definitions of abuse and neglect, and informs readers of how to report abuse and neglect.

CMS goes over hospices’ regulatory requirements involving mistreatment, abuse, or neglect of patients and points out that “failure of a hospice to act on these requirements does not prevent hospice employees from independently reporting suspected violations of patient rights to the State Survey Agency or other authorities.”

Further, “anyone making a complaint to a State Survey Agency may request to remain an anonymous complainant,” CMS says in the fact sheet. “Each State Survey Agency maintains a toll- free complaint reporting hotline as well as other complaint reporting methods such as online, written, and fax submissions.”

In many states, hospice staff are mandatory reporters and must report suspicions of abuse to state authorities, CMS adds.

In addition to providing a phone number and web address to help find reporting numbers, CMS instructs readers to “report issues related to actions or inaction on the part of a hospice agency that result in abuse or neglect directly to its State survey and certification agency for possible investigation.”

Problem: The fact sheet includes a list of abuse and neglect scenarios. The National Association for Home Care & Hospice “would like to see CMS … edit the examples of potential neglect to be more clear in the scenarios they describe as well as utilize scenarios that more accurately reflect potential issues of neglect by a hospice,” the trade group says.

Meanwhile, now is a good time to “take advantage of this opportunity to discuss patient rights and hospice responsibilities related to abuse and neglect with their staff, contractors, volunteers and patients,” NAHC recommends.

The fact sheet is at www.cms.gov/files/document/hospice-fact-sheet-mln2078643.pdf.