Medicare Hospice: Action Needed to Pay More Efficiently for Routine Home Care
What GAO Found The routine home care that makes up the bulk of Medicare hospice care for its beneficiaries is primarily delivered through visits made by nurses, aides and social workers. GAO found that in 2024 for selected beneficiaries and hospices, low-visit hospices—the 20 percent of hospices that delivered the fewest visits per week per beneficiary—averaged about half as many visits per week as high-visit hospices—the 20 percent that delivered the most visits per week. Low-visit hospices delivered a total of 2.5 visits per week on average, compared to a total of 5.5 visits per week on average for high-visit hospices. Because Medicare’s hospice daily payment rates are the same regardless.
Reported by Maria LopezMedicare Hospice: Action Needed to Pay More Efficiently for Routine Home Care.
The item is dated Tue, 09 Jun 2026 07:31:28 -0400.
TeamCog is carrying it as a audits report from GAO reports and testimonies RSS.
What GAO Found The routine home care that makes up the bulk of Medicare hospice care for its beneficiaries is primarily delivered through visits made by nurses, aides and social workers.
GAO found that in 2024 for selected beneficiaries and hospices, low-visit hospices—the 20 percent of hospices that delivered the fewest visits per week per beneficiary—averaged about half as many visits per week as high-visit hospices—the 20 percent that delivered the most visits per week.
Low-visit hospices delivered a total of 2.5 visits per week on average, compared to a total of 5.5 visits per week on average for high-visit hospices.
Because Medicare’s hospice daily payment rates are the same regardless…
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Official Source
GAO reports and testimonies RSS. Accessed 2026-06-09T15:00:03.805Z.