Reforming Medicare’s hospice benefit (2B)

The Secretary should direct the Office of Inspector General to investigate:
* The prevalence of financial relationships between hospices and long-term care facilities such as nursing facilities and assisted living facilities that may represent a conflict of interest and influence admissions to hospice,
* Differences in patterns of nursing home referrals to hospice,
* The appropriateness of enrollment practices for hospices with unusual utilization patterns (e.g., high frequency of very long stays, very short stays, or enrollment of patients discharged from other hospices), and
* The appropriateness of hospice marketing materials and other admissions practices and potential correlations between length of stay and deficiencies in marketing or admissions practices.