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Medicare patients in hospice care were less likely to be visited by professional staff in the last two days of life if they were black, dying on a Sunday or receiving care in a nursing home, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
Hospice programs do not have any mandated minimum number of required visits for the most common level of hospice care referred to as routine home care (RHC). However, a hospice program must deliver the highest possible quality of care for the dying person and support family members in their role as caregivers with the payments they receive from Medicare.
Joan M. Teno, M.D., M.S., of the University of Washington, Seattle, and coauthors examined Medicare administrative claims data for the federal fiscal year 2014 to look at patterns in visits by hospice professional staff to the dying patient and their family in the final two days of life