Hospices offer compassionate care for terminally ill patients, providing services that separate these facilities from other health-care organizations. Reimbursement, outcomes, medication-management issues, ethical questions, and the relationship with patients and families are different from traditional health-care solutions.
Medical Malpractice insurance is also different. When writing this essential coverage for hospices, consider that emotions often complicate communications between families and caregivers, leading to more frequent allegations of malpractice and greater severity of malpractice claims.
This is no small concern, as this industry has grown rapidly since its start just 40 years ago. The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) estimates that 1.58 million people received hospice care in 2010, growing from 1.3 million in 2006. There were 5,150 hospice organizations in operation in 2010, up from 4,500 in 2006, with reimbursement to hospices under the hospice Medicare benefit now exceeding $10 billion per year.
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