Trump puts Biden's Medicare hospice oversight on hold

Federal officials in recent years have ramped up efforts to identify instances in which hospice operators fraudulently bill the government or enroll patients who aren't terminally ill. But the new administration last month halted a Biden-era plan for noncompliant hospices to take corrective action or risk being kicked out of Medicare…

https://www.axios.com/2025/03/13/hospice-care-medicare-oversight-trump

Private equity ownership of US hospice centers boomed in recent years – study

Investors spent about $1tn buying healthcare facilities over last decade, leading to reports of worsening patient care…

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/sep/03/us-hospice-care-private-equity

How Oregon’s right-to-die law has inspired other US states and countries

"I voted twice against the law, but once it went into effect and I saw how it worked, I changed my mind," said Jackson, the former chief executive of the Oregon Hospice Association. 

 "I really thought that if everyone had hospice care, they wouldn't need this, which was very arrogant of me because hospice is something where others decide. One of the things that really bothers me is the idea that doctors should decide when to allow you to die. That is just awful. I came to realise this is about choice. Someone should be able to decide for themselves when to die."… 

 More broadly, Oregon's law has forced a greater focus on how people die, with doctors and medical institutions paying closer attention to palliative care and reducing suffering toward the end of life. It has also contributed to the rapid expansion of hospice care…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/26/oregon-right-to-die-law

Action on Predatory Private Equity in Health Care ‘Needed, Stat’ Says Public Citizen

A new Public Citizen report released today examines private equity's toll on U.S. health care in more than a dozen sectors, from end-of-life care and home health care to dentistry and reproductive health. Increased private equity takeovers have come with shocking lapses in safety, with prices rising faster than at non-private equity acquired entities, while patients have been subjected to price gouging schemes…

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/action-on-predatory-private-equity-in-health-care-needed-stat-says-public-citizen

Congress and Industry Leaders Call for Crackdown on Hospice Fraud — ProPublica

Studies have found that for-profit hospices are more likely than their nonprofit counterparts to have less skilled staff, reduced clinical services and fewer home visits in the last days of life. Their patients have longer stays and leave hospice alive at higher rates. Last year, citing the research, three members of the Senate Finance Committee requested information on the quality of hospice services provided by Kindred at Home, the country's largest home care chain. (Kindred's hospice subsidiary was recently spun-off and sold to a private equity firm.) "We are concerned that when applied to hospice care, the private equity model of generating profit on a rapid turnaround can occur at the expense of dying patients and their families," they wrote. Analysis of the data is ongoing, senate staffers said...

https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-industry-leaders-call-for-crackdown-on-hospice-fraud

Family Caregivers Bear Much Of The Burden Of Home Hospice Care : Shots - Health News : NPR

Even though surveys show it's what most Americans say they want, dying at home is "not all it's cracked up to be," says Johnston, who relocated to New Mexico at age 40 to care for her dying mother some years ago. She ended up writing an essay about her frustrations with the way hospice care often works in the U.S.....
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/21/789958067/patients-want-to-die-at-home-but-home-hospice-care-can-be-tough-on-families

Allow modern medicine to relieve agonizing end-of-life experiences | TheHill

In early November, doctors in Europe used gene therapy to save the life of a boy who had a genetic disease that had destroyed most of his skin. Fortunately, we as a society regularly benefit from the miracles of modern medicine — that is, until we are about to die. Then our laws and medicine unnecessarily fail us.....
http://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/366374-allow-modern-medicine-to-relieve-agonizing-end-of-life-experiences

We’re Bad at Death. First, We Need a Good Talk.

Her last conversation should not have been with me.

I’d just arrived for the night shift in the I.C.U. when her breathing quickened. I didn’t know much about the patient, and the little I did know wasn’t good: She had cancer. Her lungs were filled with fluid. As her breathing deteriorated and her oxygen levels plunged, I searched the chart for her wishes in an emergency. Nothing....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/upshot/were-bad-at-death-first-we-need-a-good-talk.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_up_20170510&nl=upshot&nl_art=0&nlid=78638145&ref=headline&te=1&_r=1