Relates to prohibiting the establishment of new for-profit hospices

• Democratic22
• Republican2

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Liz Krueger says this is needed

An article recently published by propublics and digitally released in the New Yorker titled "Hospice Became a For-Profit Hustle" shines a light on multiple instances of fraud targeting the Medicare hospice benefit. It illustrates how patient care suffers when bad actors are able to manipulate its original intent and purpose. An earlier article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association* found that "for-profit compared with nonprofit hospices provide narrower ranges of services to patients, use less skilled clin- ical staff, care for patients with lower-skilled needs over longer enrollment periods, have higher rates of complaint allegations and defi- ciencies, and provide fewer community benefits, including training, research, and charity care. For-profit hospices are more likely than nonprofit hospices to discharge patients prior to death, to discharge patients with dementia, and to have higher rates of hospital and emer- gency department use." For-profit organizations have a duty to their owners to generate as much profit as possible and distribute net income to the owners. Their obli- gations to the people they ostensibly serve are secondary. This is especially troubling in the case of hospice. The mission of hospice, providing compassionate end-of-life care, should not be subservient to providing profit to investors. New York is uniquely situated to prevent the deterioration of end-of- life care described above, as currently only two of 41 hospice in New York are for-profit, compared to a national average of two-thirds as of 2017. Now is the time to place the care and safety of persons who are dying first and foremost over profit. In her 2022 veto message 149, Governor Hochul says she will direct the New York State Master Plan for the Aging "to assess the services offered by for-profit hospices" and "to include a recommendation on their continued need." It is important for the Master Plan for the Aging to consider these issues however we already know from the experience of patients, the advocates working on their behalf and the experiences described in the articles referenced above that New York should take the proactive step of prohibiting new for-profit hospices. * Hospice Tax Status and Ownership Matters for Patients and Families JAMA Internal Medicine, August 1, 2021 By Melissa D. Aldridge.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.