An industry in transition
This issue of Hospice Management Advisor brings together a number of key strands in the fabric of change now transforming the hospice industry. Hospice's complex relationship with managed health care is revisited in our cover story, including how this relationship shapes evolving issues such as vertical and horizontal integration and the development of new end-of-life care "products." New developments in two significant arenas affecting providers, the Office of Inspector General's investigations of the industry and the implementation of medical review policies based on non-cancer guidelines, are presented on pp. 73 and 79.
In the latter article, a leading hospice physician suggests that there may be no universally acceptable solution to determining hospice eligibility so long as hospice continues to be defined by the Medicare hospice benefit's six-months-or-less requirement. On p. 72, we profile a new national hospice company that hopes to chart a path to success by pursuing its own solutions to these dilemmas. And so the puzzle of hospice's future comes into focus, one piece at a time.
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