Home Health & Hospice Week

Hospices can expect to hear more about beneficiaries appealing their coverage of items and services, thanks to a New York Times column on the court case brought by Howard Back, whose wife was under hospice care and denied Actiq (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XXI, No. 29).

The fact that Medicare beneficiaries and their survivors have a right to appeal denials of services by a hospice provider "wasn't at all clear until this court's decision," Center for Medicare Advo-cacy attorney Gill Deford tells the Times. The CMA represented Back in the case.

The article seems to take Back's wife's hospice, Visiting Nurse Association of the Inland Counties in Riverside, Calif., to task for denying Acqtiq for the wife's "agonizing pain."

It's disappointing that the court decision "doesn't ensure that people receive a notice of their right to appeal when they enter hospice care, or that any mechanism exists for expedited appeals," Deford tells the newspaper.

Back is unsure if he will move forward with an appeal. "I don't know if I'm ready to start writing letters all over again at this point of my life," he tells the Times. Rather than recovering the money, his interest is "in making sure other people don't have to go through what I've gone through."

Watch out: The columnist ends the piece by asking readers to share similar stories.