Specialty Mattress covered by medicare Hospice Benefit?

[AtlantaRN, RN]

I have a nursing home patient, who has been on a KCL specialty mattress prior to going on hospice. The nursing home facility has been renting one (at the nursing home expense), as the patient is now on hospice under the medicare benefit, is such a mattress covered under the medicare hospice benefit? I had always ordered a "gel overlay"...which is quite inexpensive.

There is not physicians order for this mattress at this time...

Anyone know if it is covered under the hospice medicare benefit.

thanks!

[doodlemom]

I have a nursing home patient, who has been on a KCL specialty mattress prior to going on hospice. The nursing home facility has been renting one (at the nursing home expense), as the patient is now on hospice under the medicare benefit, is such a mattress covered under the medicare hospice benefit? I had always ordered a "gel overlay"...which is quite inexpensive.

There is not physicians order for this mattress at this time...

Anyone know if it is covered under the hospice medicare benefit.

thanks!

That depends what you mean by "covered." Medicare pays your hospice a per diem rate - you have to pay for equipment out of what they pay - which means that your hospice should pay for whatever bed/mattress is appropriate for the patient and will keep them comfortable. Our hospice will pay for certain specialty mattresses depending on a patients particular problems (wounds, fractures, etc..) We will not pay for anything as expensive as a clinitron bed.

[aimeee, BSN, RN]

When we take on a patient who is on a specialty mattress the first thing we do is assess the need and the goals. Then we figure out what mattress/overlay we need to achieve that. We have a DME provider who has found products that are equivalent to the big names used by the nursing homes at a significantly lower cost to us. If the nursing home insists on keeping the same specialty bed we are often able to negotiate a significantly lower rate with the company providing it.