"Reimbursement Cuts Will Negatively Affect Hospice Care"
A recent study shows that "as a result of two recent cuts to Medicare reimbursement, the first regulatory and the second statutory, the overall median Medicare profit margin for the hospice community could decrease from 2 percent in 2008 to -14 percent by 2019."
The study goes on to demonstrate how, like nearly everything else involving health care in the United States, poor areas--both urban and rural--will face the worst consequences of cuts to hospice care.
Blue Skies Hospice serves many low-income families at no cost. Organizations like Blue Skies play a vital, valuable, and essential role in their communities, because they attempt to fill in the gaps of social dislocation by providing suffering people with services they otherwise could not have. Small organization can only go so far, however. The larger polity of the United States needs to make quality hospice care a larger priority.
"At India's First Hospice, Every Life is Important"
"The pin drop silence gives no indication that there are 60 patients admitted at the moment in Shanti Avedna Sadan-the country's first hospice that is located on the quiet incline leading to the Mount Mary Church in Bandra. "
"There is only one guiding principle here: no life is so worthless that it can be thrown away. 'Life is a gift given by God. We cannot dictate when it should end,' said Sister Aqula Chittatil. Sisters and nurses who take care of the day-to-day running of the hospice have only goal: to ensure that the patient's end of life is as pain-free as possible and full of care."
This beautiful story is a reminder that from Egypt to Ethiopia and from India to Indiana, human beings have the same physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Hospice care does a wonderful service for suffering people by making a valiant and qualified effort to fill those needs.
