Marketing Question

[Brandy214]

I work for a hospice company that has a marketer that has "contracted" with the hospice's Medical Director's other business that consists of himself and Licensed Nurse Practitioners. His business that consists of himself and the NPs sees patients in their homes in the community, assisted living facilities and nursing homes/rehabs. This is a business that is curative and not associated with the hospice. The hospice marketer's purpose with the MD's other business is to put on a badge that does not have the hospice's name on it (has the curative business' name on it), and make rounds with the Nurse Practitioners and/or MD to fish for patients for the hospice. Myself and several others on our team find this to be unethical and potentially illegal behavior. Please give me your thoughts on this situation!

[LaurieCRNP2002, MSN, RN, APRN]

I currently work for a hospice/palliative care company and we do have marketers but to date (and I've only been there about 2.5 months) I have NEVER seen our marketers "fish" for patients as far as looking in their charts. They go to different facilities to educate the staff as to the differences between hospice and palliative care. It is left to the clinical staff (myself and my fellow NP) to evaluate patients on our palliative service and if they are appropriate for hospice, we then refer them.

Having previously worked for a company that did house calls, I would say that if this "marketer" is looking in patient charts, that would be a red flag to me--as in a potential HIPAA violation. It's one thing if the NPs or MD refer appropriate patients for hospice eval but to have someone with no clinical background looking thru charts to find "hospice-appropriate" patients strikes me as very unethical, at the very least.