My proposal is to treat inpatient Hospice the same in Medicare as an inpatient Rehab/nursing home is treated. Medicare pays for the first 100 days in a nursing home/rehab facility after a hospital stay but only 5 days in a hospice facility. I am from Branford, CT where Hospice was started. We have a beautiful Hospice facility on the water where seniors went for years at the end of their lives. I know of many people who have died here after spending a few days to weeks here. They were always full and sometimes had a waiting list. People who were terminally ill could come here for comfort at the end of their lives and die with love and dignity. Something changed with Medicare policies around 2021 and patients are only allowed to stay for five days now and if they have not passed away, they have to leave or private pay at a rate of just less than $1000 a day. If you cannot afford this you have to go to a family members home or into a nursing home (and pay there until all of your assets are depleted.) My mother is currently in Hospice in Branford but is taking her time passing away. There are beds here for 58 patients and they have had between 1-9 patients per day since we have been here. Your cousin Ted Kennedy Jr. lives in Branford and he can tell you how wonderful of a place this facility is and to see it underused is heartbreaking. What is happening is the hospitals are putting people into rehab/nursing homes after a terminal person leaves the hospital so that Medicare can pay for it until they die. Medicare will pay for the first 100 days if you go to a rehab/nursing home right after a hospital stay. They tried to convince us to send my mother there but for personal past reasons, this was not a good choice for her.
My mother was close at one point to passing away, but because of the rest and love and care she received here, she rebounded a little. She is still terminal, still dying probably in a week or so, but because she suddenly showed an interest in food after not eating anything for 3 weeks, she no longer qualifies for in patient coverage and we need to either move her or pay. So we are paying, using up her funds from her home sale. When leaving the hospital we could have sent her to a rehab facility, which is actually a local nursing home. The care in those places are sub par and they are not the same at all as a hospice facility. We wanted her to die with love and comfort, not mediocre care. Medicare would have paid for 100 days in a nursing home, so my proposal is that Medicare pay for up to 100 days in inpatient Hospice care. The care is less expensive. Medicare is no longer paying for her medication or expensive medical treatments. She is just laying here surrounded by love and comfort and many volunteers taking her time dying. Please consider my proposal and please speak with your cousin Ted Kennedy Jr. and he can tell you how wonder this facility is. He probably does not even know that it sits 80% empty now because of new Medicare regulations. Thank you for considering this.
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