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Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Note:

New York Times Profiles Hospice Patient Appeal Case

Published on Thu Sep 13, 2012

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 [...]
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