Center for Medicare Advocacy
Originally posted April 10, 2014
Here are some excerpts:
Summary
Medications that should be covered by the Medicare Hospice Benefit are sometimes paid for by the insurance companies that administer Medicare Part D plans. To prevent this from happening, effective May 1, 2014, all prescribed medications for hospice patients billed to Medicare Part D will initially be denied coverage. To get their medications, hospice patients will have to initiate and ultimately succeed at a Medicare appeal. In other words, to protect insurance companies, dying patients will have to jump through hoops to get medically necessary, potentially life-sustaining medications.
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Conclusion
This burden-shifting to the dying patient is illogical and immoral.
CMS has erred in assuming that most hospice patients will not continue to have Part D covered medications. Most older Americans are on medications for chronic conditions, and some of these medications...
The entire article is here.
Thanks to Deborah Derrickson Kossmann for this information.
