Spring CEO/Trustee Business Luncheon

The Spring Luncheon was held at the Greenbelt Marriott. CEOs, Trustees, Department Heads and Associates enjoyed an awesome sit down lunch. Council President & CEO Joe Burns distributed the Healthcare Council/Shared Services Annual Report. Council Chairman Michael Barch presided over the meeting. The featured speaker was Malene Davis, President & CEO, Capital Hospice.

Joe Burns introduced Ms. Davis to a welcome round of applause. A synopsis of her presentation using PowerPoint follows.

Ms. Davis began by reviewing what she called “the best kept secret in American health care” - the Medicare Hospice Benefit. Ms. Davis said many people, including providers, may not be aware that Part-A provides for medications, supplies, durable medical equipment and all visits by the hospice interdisciplinary team, which travels to wherever the patient resides. Perhaps most important in a public policy sense is that hospice utilization saves Medicare money, Ms. Davis said. According to a Duke University study in 2007, people who received hospice care cost the Medicare program about $2300 less per patient than those who did not, amounting to an annual savings of more than $2 billion.

Ms. Davis cited figures for Washington, DC that demonstrate the under-utilization of hospice in this region by people with a life expectancy of less than two years (7 days of hospice care vs. the national average of 13 days) and the excessive cost per patient to Medicare in this region – approximately $9000 more per enrollee, with much of the cost coming in the patient’s final six months. Ms. Davis said another issue is late admission into a hospice program. Though a patient is medically eligible–generally speaking–with a prognosis of 6 months or less, few enter a hospice program until much later in the trajectory of their illness.

From 2003 to 2008, Capital Hospice doubled its Death Service Ratio in the District of Columbia–the number of people who died under hospice care compared to the total number of deaths. However, even the increased number is appallingly low. But the picture is getting somewhat brighter, she said. Over the last 24 months, the number of referrals to hospice has increased considerably, although there are still a significant number of people medically eligible but not receiving hospice care.

The solution, Ms. Davis said, is in educating providers to recognize people who are at risk of dying within weeks or months and creating best practices to assure early referral into quality hospice programs. Alternatively, Ms. Davis suggested, patients whose illness doesn’t meet the medical criteria for hospice or who are not emotionally ready to accept hospice services should be referred to quality palliative care programs.

A general question and answer session followed and the group thanked Ms. Davis for her thought provoking presentation.

The Capital Hospice can be reached at 703-531-6200 or www.capitalhospice.org.