eHospice features article by NHPCO’s Edo Banach titled “Moving Beyond the Medicare Benefit in the U.S.” 

Banach calls for more flexibility so that people can get curative and palliative care at the same time. He also calls the six months prognosis for hospice eligibility “arbitrary,” saying it has been a financial issue (not a medical one) since the beginning of the Medicare Hospice benefit. It will better serve beneficiaries, he says, if hospice service is based on patient needs and is not a time-limited benefit. Community-based palliative care needs to be defined and implemented.

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