Home Health & Hospice Week

As if hospices haven’t taken enough heat, a federal watchdog agency has dedicated a new “Featured Topics” webpage to the industry.

“Hospice care is meant to provide terminally ill patients and their families with great comfort, but [the HHS Office of Inspector General] has identified problems in the hospice program that have put patients at risk,” the OIG says in a notice about the development. The “new Featured Topics page … details our oversight of the hospice program,” the agency explains.

For example: “Our reports and investigations have revealed several concerning issues, including poor — sometimes harmful — quality of care, fraud schemes that involve enrolling beneficiaries without their consent, inappropriate billing practices, limited transparency for patients and their families, a payment system that creates incentives to minimize services, and a rapid growth in the number of new hospices, often to take advantage of these conditions,” the OIG lists.

“There are still many OIG recommendations that have not been implemented,” the agency criticizes. “These include changing the payment structure, increasing oversight by improving the survey process, and using available data to target oversight most effectively. OIG has also recommended that CMS study whether additional items and services could be included within the hospice benefit, to ensure that hospice care is comprehensive.”

The new page, which includes a reference to Hospice Care Compare and ways to report concerns, is at https://oig. hhs.gov/reports-and-publications/featured-topics/hospice.