Eli's Hospice Insider

Published on Fri Mar 01, 2013 PDF

A combination of skilled nursing facility and hospice care reduces dementia patients’ likelihood to die in a hospital, according to a study by Susan Miller of Brown University, which was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Dementia patients receiving SNF and hospice care concurrently were 78 percent less likely to die in a hospital than those without hospice care, the study found. And patients receiving hospice care following SNF treatment were 98 percent less likely to die in a hospital.

The study’s findings may pose a good argument that CMS should repeal the Medicare payment rule prohibiting concurrent hospice and SNF care, states the Hospice Association of America