The Hospice Cap is a growing crisis threatening patient access to hospice care.
The Cap:
- Demands that hundreds of hospices in over 25 states return to Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars they were paid to care for medically eligible patients,
- Forces hospices to delay the admission of medically eligible patients, and
- Punishes medically eligible hospice patients for simply living longer than expected.
The National Alliance for Hospice Access calls for an Immediate
3 Year Moratorium so that independent hospices will survive and hospice patients will get critical hospice services while Congress develops a fiscally responsible, long term solution.
This Moratorium will:
- Stop the calculation of any 2006, 2007 or 2008 Cap overpayment that has not yet been calculated, and
- Stop collection of any Cap overpayment which has already been calculated but not collected by CMS.
Cap Does Not Cover 180 Days of Hospice
No hospice should be penalized for offering informed choice to Medicare beneficiaries who are eligible to receive the hospice benefit.
No dying hospice patient should be penalized for living too long.
Hospice saves Medicare money for average lengths of stay up to 233 days for cancer patients and 154 for non-cancer patients according to a new Duke University study. Results suggest that even when hospice stays are longer, Medicare costs benefit from patients remaining in hospice care until death.