Hospice Advocacy Efforts Continue

From the press release:

A bipartisan group of 171 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to President Barack Obama this week showing their support to protect access to high-quality end-of-life care for the 1.4 million patients, and their families, who depend on hospice each year.

In the letter, lawmakers urged the President to stop cuts to the Medicare hospice benefit scheduled to begin on October 1, 2009, which threaten to jeopardize the compassionate care the nation’s hospices provide to the dying.

The letter was spearheaded by Representatives Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL). A similar bipartisan letter is also gathering signatures in the U.S. Senate.

Over the past year, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the Alliance for Care at the End of Life, and thousands of Hospice Advocates from across the country have been working to overturn a 2008 rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the direction of the Bush Administration. The rule eliminates a key component of the Medicare hospice benefit known as the budget neutrality adjustment factor (BNAF).

President Obama and Congress approved a moratorium on the hospice funding cuts earlier this year, but it expires on September 30, 2009. Without action by the Administration and Congress, hospice reimbursements through Medicare will be reduced by 3.1 percent in fiscal year 2010, leaving hospice programs nationwide, particularly smaller and rural ones, facing cutbacks in services and possible closure.