Medicare hospice demo criticized for tight eligibility limits

Modern Healthcare: Some hospice advocates and providers are concerned that too few Medicare beneficiaries will qualify for a CMS experiment allowing terminally ill patients to continue curative treatment after starting hospice care.

Medicare patients currently are required to forgo curative services when they enroll in a hospice program to receive palliative care during the dying process. But studies have found that providing both forms of care concurrently improves quality of life and reduces costs since those patients tend to not make frequent hospital visits.

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