Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Medicare Pilot Project Allows Patients To Have Hospice Care While Also Seeking Cures
Stat: Reimagining Hospice Care — For The Living
As of earlier this year, participants in Medicare’s Care Choices pilot program can receive home-hospice care while also pursuing curative treatments, as long as they have cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure (CHF), or HIV, and as long as they are admitted to one of the nation’s 140 participating hospice programs. The experiment is designed to encourage more use of hospice care, which has been shown to improve a patient’s quality and quantity of life, but is still rejected by some patients and clinicians. Roughly half of the nation’s dying patients don’t receive hospice care at all, and those who do receive hospice care typically do so three weeks before dying. (Tedeschi, 10/26)
Modern Healthcare: CMS Gives Providers More Ways To Enroll In Alternative Payment Models
The Obama administration is touting continued progress in achieving its goal of tying half of all healthcare spending to alternative payment models by the end of 2018. HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell also said the CMS would give providers more opportunities to become involved in Medicare's alternative models. (Muchmore, 10/25)
