MedPAC Access to Hospice Care Presentation

November 8, 2007 This report was presented to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) by policy analyst James E. Matthews, Ph.D. The presentation covered the most recent statistics concerning the Medicare hospice benefit and spending. The most pressing issue of the report was the greater number of Medicare beneficiaries reaching hospice providers' aggregate cap of access to care. The report found that in 2005, 220 hospices reached the aggregate per-beneficiary payment cap due to patients' longer length-of-stay and were asked to return overpayments totaling nearly $166 million to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. About . . .