Massive fraud. Quotas for hospice marketers. (Yes, 70% of hospices are for-profit, and for them it's all about marketing.) Whistleblower lawsuits. Federal prosecutors going to work for the firms they prosecute. Patients not needing hospice signed up without their knowledge, depriving them of the curative or maintenance care they do need. Patients who don't die when they're supposed to remain on the books, or re-signed, and re-signed and re-signed again. Doctors signing blank forms authorizing hospice care. Patients who rarely, or never, see a hospice nurse.
"In Frisco, Texas, according to the FBI, a hospice owner tried to evade the Medicare-repayment problem by instructing staff to overdose patients who were staying on the service too long. He texted a nurse about one patient: “He better not make it tomorrow. Or I will blame u.”"
And it's not just private-equity in this $22-billion cash cow; no medical background needed -- "accountants; vacation-rental superhosts; a criminal-defense attorney who represented a hospice employee convicted of fraud and was later investigated for hospice fraud himself; and a man convicted of drug distribution who went on to fraudulently bill Medicare more than $5 million for an end-of-life-care business that involved handling large quantities of narcotics."
I know that hospice has worked wonders for many on this site, and I don't doubt their experiences. But I was astonished at the greed and outright sociopathy of some of the people who are in this business, which I had always thought was full of altruists whose only goal was to ease people's transition out of life. When private-equity gets involved, you know there's trouble brewing.
The main takeaway: keep your eyes open and your antenna up.
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United Healthcare and AI-Driven Denials
