Hospice

If a patient agrees to have hospice come to a rehab center Medicare will pay for hospice but that person will have to give up all their other Medicare benefits. What would happen if that rehab subsequently sent that patient to the Emergency Room of a hospital?

Does anyone know the answer to this question?

NOt trying to be mean or heartless, but why would a person in hospice need to go to an emergency room if the purpose of hospice is to keep them comfortable until they pass?

My sister recently passed away and had cancer in her lungs and liver, yet for some reason, they did BACK surgery on her. She got out of that and was going to go into hospice but she passed a week later, before she could be moved. Which might be the reason a patient gives up their Medicare benefits…to prevent doctors and hospitals from using dying patients to squeeze more money out of Medicare.

KC- there is a difference between in patient hospice and when hospice services are used at a nursing home or rehab center. In the former hospice has complete control of the patients care so the lack of other Medicare services shouldn’t be an issue. However when hospice comes to see patients in another facility it is only for a short period of time per day so that facility can decide to send those hospice patients to an ER.

In Connecticut a person only qualifies for in patient hospice if their life expectancy is less than a week but hospice visiting patients at another facility is for patients who have a life expectancy of six months or less.

The reason why I asked this question is because the short term rehab where my husband has been since his most recent hospitalization asked me to have a meeting with their doctor and head nurse because they think hospice should come to their facility to help treat my husband

My Sister recently died in the hospital of a lung disease. She had very good medical insurance. Her children went to sell her house two months later. At the closing there was a lien on her home placed by the hospital of $1000 which was taken out of the proceeds.

My FIL had hip replacement at 96 years old and on hospice. He died 4 days later. Makes no sense.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with hospice. So sorry for your losses.

My sister was in a skilled nursing facility and we were going to move her to an inpatient hospice because, as morbid as it sounds, we didn’t know when she would die, and after 30 days in skilled nursing, Medicare didn’t pay anymore. From our quick research in Texas, hospice, in patient or not, was approved for 6 months, but would extend provided the patient didn’t show improvement. We went to Dallas to see what we needed to do and inpatient hospice seemed like the best solution. But when the nurse from the hospice came to do an evaluation, she said that they didn’t think my sister would make it thru the night and as in no condition to move, so they sent staff in at that time to provide care in the nursing facility. She passed early the next morning. But we had not idea if her weak condition was due to the cancer or teh stupid and unnecessary back surgery they performed. We told the facility that we didn’t know how long she had, but they didn’t seem to have any issues with admitting her.

This is very difficult to deal with, especially the financial aspects. The skilled nursing facility had a limit of 30 days and after that it was $300 per day (which she could never have afforded). She had lived at an assisted/independent living facility, but they said that they were not equipped for that. Hard to figure out why.

But you are in my thoughts during this time.

KC - Thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate it