Can a LTC facility do this?

[bckthuzs1]

I have been working at a ltc for the past year and half and have seen this for the second time now. We recently lost a patient who was admitted to the facitly 1 mo prior. When she came the Dr told the family she was a good canidate for Hospice. Family didn't want her put on at the time and the patient wanted to live. After a week at the ltc the patient gave up and started to decline really fast. At this time family felt hospice was best. At this time the census is really low at the ltc and the DON and Admin both say she has medicare days left and it's not time for hospice. Needless to say after a week of the family talking with the Dr and fighting with the facility the patient was put on hospice and died on the 2nd day of hospice. Now we have another patient that staff feels should be on hospice but you get the same response from the DON and Admin that they have too many medicare days.

I know I don't fully understand the whole medicare thing and was wondering from other point views.

[Pfiesty]

and remember - fraud is money out of our pockets. Medicare is funded by our taxes - not some mysterious money tree.

Absolutely!

[Pfiesty]

[color=dimgray] [/i]

[color=dimgray]"it's not a case of medicare fraud, it's a case of the family having no payor source for the hospice and not wanting to end up paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for their familiy member's last days."

[color=dimgray]quote]

the family asked for hospice. it should have been considered and pursued.

let's do our jobs as patient advocates and leave the investigations to the trained investigators. often they investigate and find that the complaint is unsubstantiated. they will find the truth and relieve the rest of us to our patient caring duties.