Nationwide Review of Hospice Beneficiary Eligibility

Hospice care can provide comfort to beneficiaries, families, and caregivers at the end of beneficiaries' lives. To be eligible for hospice care, they must be entitled to Medicare Part A and be certified as being terminally ill. The certification of terminal illness for hospice benefits shall be based on the clinical judgment of the hospice medical director or physician member of the interdisciplinary group, and the beneficiaries' attending physician, if they have one, regarding the normal course of their illness. OAS has performed several compliance audits of individual hospice providers in recent years, and each of those audit reports identified findings related to beneficiary eligibility. We will perform a nationwide review of hospice eligibility, focusing on those hospice beneficiaries that haven't had an inpatient hospital stay or an emergency room visit in certain periods prior to their start of hospice care.