Hospice saves money. Why the time limit?

Hospice saves Medicare billions annually. This is the conclusion of research reported by author Jim Parker in Hospice News. One might argue these research conclusions are merely common sense observations. Think about it - if a patient selects hospice care they avoid much more expensive hospital care. The longer the patient is in hospice the greater the savings to Medicare. Yet the Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Health and Human Services (OIG) considers stays of longer than 6 months in hospice to be grounds for fraud. Medicare and the OIG need to support hospice, not investigate it, if they wish to save billions for Medicare. Furthermore, Medicare should pay for hospice based on an hourly cost - and not pay hospice based on a complex coding system that encourages fraud and needless OIG oversight. To learn more details on these observations read The Journey’s End.