Two Cuts Are Too Much: Hospice Under the Knife.

From the fantastic GeriPal regarding proposed cuts to hospice care:

The high-quality, compassionate end-of-life care Americans depend upon is threatened by not one but two devastating rate cuts. Already bracing for a 3 percent regulatory rate cut starting this month (the Budget Neutrality Adjustment Factor or BNAF), hospice, along with most other Medicare providers, is also facing additional cuts through a “productivity adjustment” to help finance health care reform.

These new reductions would slash rates by a damaging 11.8 percent throughout the next 10 years to fund new health care initiatives written into the bill. Combined, the impact of these two cuts would mean an astounding 14.3 percent loss to hospice. Considering hospice, as sited by MedPac, already operates on a very small profit margin of 3.4 percent, this means programs will go broke, doors will close, and Americans will be left without or with limited options of having hospice at home. In response to the proposed cuts, The Alliance for the End of Life Care and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) have launched “Two Cuts Are Too Much,” a grassroots campaign.

For an industry already just getting by on bake sales and fundraisers, this would be a blow.