New rules regarding hospice stays respond to patients with unpredictable illnesses like Alzheimer's and heart failure

The Philadelphia Inquirer: U.S. Rules Require Clearance For Long Hospice Stays
New government rules — enforcement kicked in last month — require hospices to send doctors or nurse practitioners for face-to-face visits with Medicare patients who have been on hospice more than six months to certify that the patients are really sick enough to need the program. The new rules came in response to lengthening hospice stays as services expanded beyond cancer patients to those with slower-moving and less predictable illnesses like heart failure, Alzheimer's, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Burling, 5/5).

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.