Brady and Neal Demand Information on Medicare Hospice Deficiencies

In response to two reports on the poor quality of care delivered to numerous Medicare hospice enrollees, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) and Ranking Member Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) this week sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requesting information regarding the agency's efforts to address certain hospice failings. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) released the disturbing reports earlier in July, which found that 87 percent of hospices had at least one care deficiency between 2012 and 2016. In addition, 20 percent of the 4,563 hospices surveyed had at least one serious deficiency, meaning the hospice was limited in its capacity to deliver adequate care or the health and safety of a beneficiary were placed in jeopardy. "In some states, nearly every hospice that OIG surveyed had at least one deficiency during that five-year period," Neal and Brady lamented. They cited individual cases where hospices did not treat beneficiary wounds, resulting in gangrene or limb amputation.