Hospice Response to USA Today Article, "The Painful Truth of Hospice Care" The Hospice Association of America (HAA) encourages hospices to respond to a very negative article about hospice, "The Painful Truth of Hospice Care," which appeared in the Life section of the August 20 edition of USA Today. If you have not seen it, you can find it at: www.usatoday.com/news/healthscience/health/2001-08-20-hospice-care.htm. HAA has written to ask for another article, this time sharing the overwhelmingly positive experiences of hospice patients and families. Below is the language of our letter. We believe it important enough to ask patients and families to write too; USA Today should be blitzed so they will do a positive hospice story to balance the very negative effects of this one. It is bad enough when a local paper writes a derogatory story but USA Today is read across the country and can greatly influence patients, families and Members of Congress. Together we can have an impact. Please e-mail copies of your letters to HAA at jen@nahc.org Thanks, Janet Neigh Hospice Association of America August 23, 2001 Ms. Karen Jurgensen Editor, USA Today Gannett Co., Inc. 1000 Wilson Boulevard Arlington, Virginia 22229 Dear Ms. Jurgensen: The tone of the story, "The Painful Truth of Hospice Care" which appeared in the August 19, 2001, edition of USA Today did a great disservice to the thousands of hospice caregivers agreeably serving America's terminally ill patients. It also unfairly discourages patients and families in need who could benefit from these services. The article implied that all hospices have their own in-patient facilities to which they would transfer patients rather than caring for them at home. This is simply not true. The latest figures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration) show that 97% of the Medicare Hospice Benefit services provided in 1998 were given in the patient's home; in-patient care represented only 3%. Every hospice has many letters of thanks from patients and families praising the services that made it possible for them to get through the most difficult time of a loved one's life. They receive hundreds of thank you letters for every one complaint. Hospices are embraced by their community and could not survive without its support. That this continues is evidence that the services are overwhelmingly valued and benefit the community. The great preponderance of care is given by loving caregivers who give heart and soul to those they care for, sometimes at a risk to their own health. The assertion that hospice is a for-profit business susceptible to all the same problems seen in other parts of health care is erroneous. Care provided by a for-profit agency is not inherently inferior to that given by any other type of hospice and the September 2000 General Accounting Office report indicated that in 1999, only 27% of hospices were for-profit, most are non-profit agencies. With the number of days hospices have to care for patients and families continually declining, hospice caregivers — nurses, therapists, physicians, social workers, home care aides, clergy, volunteers — are even more frazzled trying to do everything they can to make the experience as comfortable as possible for their patients and families. Government red tape contributes to worker frustration and the tone of this article adds to their stress. The fact that this article focuses on the rare aberration and does not represent the standard of care hospices provide is unjust. In fairness to your readers and America's hospices, we ask that you run another article that shares the breadth of positive results patients and families have received from this truly comprehensive, caring, compassionate, family-centered end of life care. It would be helpful for your paper to examine the role the government plays in our health care system with the paperwork burden and low rates of reimbursement making it difficult to provide all the necessary services, medical equipment and medications as well as recruit and retain caregivers. Please contact us at the Hospice Association of America if you need any further information to accomplish our request. Sincerely, Sister Mary Giovanni, Chair