Quality of hospices used by Medicare Advantage and traditional fee-for-service beneficiaries

Quality of hospices used by Medicare Advantage and traditional fee-for-service beneficiaries
JAMA Network Open; Lindsay L. Y. White, PhD, MPH; Chuxuan Sun, MPA; Norma B. Coe, PhD; 12/24
In this cross-sectional study including 4,215,648 decedents and 2,211,826 hospice enrollees, regular Medicare Advantage and fee-for-service beneficiaries enrolled in hospices of similar quality. However, beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage special needs plans were significantly more likely than fee-for-service beneficiaries to use hospices of inferior quality, with referral networks playing an important role in hospice quality choice. These results suggest that policymakers should consider incentivizing referrals to high-quality hospices and approaches to educating beneficiaries on identifying high-quality hospice care.