Hospice care” and “palliative care” are not synonymous terms. Hospice care is defined as a comprehensive set of services (see “Hospice Coverage,” below) identified and coordinated by an interdisciplinary group to provide for the physical, psychosocial, spiritual, and emotional needs of a terminally ill patient and/or family members, as delineated in a specific patient plan of care.1 Palliative care is defined as patient- and family-centered care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing, and treating suffering. Palliative care throughout the continuum of illness involves addressing physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs, and facilitates patient autonomy, access to information, and choice.1
As an approach, hospice care of terminally ill individuals involves palliative care (relief of pain and uncomfortable symptoms), and emphasizes maintaining the patient at home with family and friends as long as possible. Hospice services can be provided in a home, center, skilled-nursing facility, or hospital setting. In contrast, palliative-care services can be provided during hospice care, or coincide with care that is focused on a cure.
Many hospitalists provide both hospice care and palliative-care services to their patients. Different factors affect how to report these services. These programs can be quite costly, as they involve several team members and a substantial amount of time delivering these services. Capturing services appropriately and obtaining reimbursement to help continue program initiatives are significant issues.
Hospice Care
When a patient enrolls in hospice, all rights to Medicare Part B payments are waived during the benefit period involving professional services related to the treatment and management of the terminal illness. Payment is made through the Part A benefit for the associated costs of daily care and the services provided by the hospice-employed physician. An exception occurs for professional services of an independent attending physician who is not an employee of the designated hospice and does not receive compensation from the hospice for those services. The “attending physician” for hospice services must be an individual who is a doctor of medicine or osteopathy, or a nurse practitioner identified by the individual, at the time they elect hospice coverage, as having the most significant role in the determination and delivery of their medical care.2
Patients often receive hospice in the hospital setting, where the hospitalist manages the patient’s daily care. If the hospitalist is designated as the “attending physician” for hospice services, the visits should be reported to Medicare Part B with modifier GV (e.g. 99232-GV).3 This will allow for separate payment to the hospitalist (the independent attending physician), while the hospice agency maintains its daily-care rate. Reporting services absent this modifier will result in denial.
In some cases, the hospitalist is not identified as the “attending physician” for hospice services but occasionally provides care related to the terminal illness. This situation proves most difficult. Although the hospitalist might be the most accessible physician to the staff and is putting the patient’s needs first, reimbursement is unlikely. Regulations stipulate that patients must not see independent physicians other than their “attending physician” for care related to their terminal illness unless the hospice arranges it. When the service is related to the hospice patient’s terminal illness but was furnished by someone other than the designated “attending physician,” this “other physician” must look to the hospice for payment.3