McKnight's May 9, 2022
(HealthDay News) — Recent changes in Medicare policies are associated with reductions in the share of patients with an Alzheimer disease and related dementias (ADRD) code receiving hospice care, according to a study published online May 6 in JAMA Health Forum.
Kan Z. Gianattasio, M.P.P., from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, D.C., and colleagues examined whether hospice use among patients with ADRD changed in association with recent policies aimed at reducing hospice misuse and long hospice stays in an observational cross-sectional study. Data were included for 11,124,992 unique hospice episodes between 2008 and 2019 among Medicare hospice beneficiaries aged 65 years or older at the time of enrollment.
The researchers found that during...