美国国家公共电台 NPR HHS Inspector General's Report Finds Flaws And Fraud In U.S. Hospice Care

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

Hospice services can offer some peace at the end of life, helping¹ to relieve pain and providing emotional support. But a new government report highlights the ways in which some hospices cheat Medicare and neglect patients. NPR's Ina Jaffe has the story.

INA JAFFE, BYLINE²: In 2016, Medicare paid hospice providers $16.7 billion. And hospices are not paid for each individual service. They're paid by the day.

NANCY HARRISON: Regardless of the number of services they provide and regardless of the quality of care they provide.

JAFFE: That's Nancy Harrison. She's a deputy regional inspector³ general in the Department of Health and Human Services and the lead author of the new report. While patients can generally count on hospice to relieve their suffering, the report shows sometimes patient needs have been ignored.

HARRISON: We found that hospices provide fewer services on the weekends than during the week - far fewer, actually. And patients would have pain on weekends just as well as they have it on weekdays.

JAFFE: The report even found that one hospice billed Medicare without ever visiting the patient. They called his family to find out how he was. Researchers also discovered that some hospice providers appeared to seek out patients in nursing homes or assisted living. Those settings allowed them to bill Medicare for a level of service that some patients didn't need but costs the government almost four times more than basic in-home care. So, Harrison says, in 2012, for example...

HARRISON: That cost Medicare $268 million.

JAFFE: Then there are hospice companies that make money by outright⁴ fraud. Department of Health and Human Services special agent Derrick Jackson recalls a case where a Mississippi hospice owner signed up clients who were not terminally ill and didn't qualify for hospice. The owner was sentenced to nearly six years in prison and had to pay back almost $8 million. Jackson says the patients in this case didn't even know they'd enrolled⁵ in hospice.

DERRICK JACKSON: Oftentimes, these hospice owners will market themselves as, we will clean your house for free. A lot of times, people just want company. Right? You have elderly folks that no one comes to see them, and they want somebody to come over and sit down and talk with them.

JAFFE: The inspector general's report has 15 recommendations for improving the system. Basically, they say CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, should analyze⁶ more data to ferret out scams and share that information with inspectors⁷ and the public. CMS declined NPR's request for an interview. But in a letter to the inspector general, the agency's head, Seema Verma, rejected more than half of the recommendations. CMS also released a statement saying, in part, that the agency is aggressively focused on reducing and eliminating fraud, waste and abuse. Nancy Harrison, the report's lead author, says that it's crucial for the government to get this right.

HARRISON: Because hospice is eventually going to touch us all.

JAFFE: And when that time comes, no one wants it to be harder than necessary.

Ina Jaffe, NPR News.

[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio version of this report, Derrick Jackson is referred to as a special agent with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In fact, his title is special agent in charge.]

(SOUNDBITE OF SLOW DANCING SOCIETY'S "A SONG THAT WILL HELP YOU REMEMBER TO FORGET")

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 inspector   

n.检查员，监察员，视察员

参考例句：

• The inspector was interested in everything pertaining to the school.视察员对有关学校的一切都感兴趣。
• The inspector was shining a flashlight onto the tickets.查票员打着手电筒查看车票。

4 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

5 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

7 inspectors   

n.检查员( inspector的名词复数 )；（英国公共汽车或火车上的）查票员；（警察）巡官；检阅官

参考例句：

• They got into the school in the guise of inspectors. 他们假装成视察员进了学校。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inspectors checked that there was adequate ventilation. 检查员已检查过，通风良好。 来自《简明英汉词典》