The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced on Friday, Oct. 30 that it will start paying doctors for end-of-life counseling services to determine the type of care patients prefer during their last days.
About six years ago, the concept has been taken without much welcoming thought. Now, CMS has included the end-of-life counseling in the Medicare physician schedule. The new policy is said to empower senior citizen to make their own decisions about how they want to be cared for during the last days of life, as well as when such care services should be rendered.
In a CMS news release, the agency wrote that it will include in its 2016 payment rules the final provision in the so-called advanced care planning. As per the recommendations of the stakeholders and members of the Congress, the CMS is in the stage of finalizing its plan of supporting patient and family-centered care approaches to its beneficiaries by empowering them to talk about advanced care planning with their medical team.
"CMS is pleased to implement the first fee schedule since Congress acted to improve patient access by protecting physician payments from annual cuts," the statement read.
The policy, which was proposed last summer, will take effect starting Jan. 1, 2016. The service is completely voluntary and could be conducted during regular clinic visits or annual wellness checks for seniors.
Dr. Patrick Conway, the chief medical officer of Medicare said that he is aware of the significance of discussion among patients and their families. He added that Medicare believes that these people deserve the chance to talk about these issues with the medical team.
Conway also said that Medicare decided not to cut the number of times that counseling has to be performed. Doctors and members of the public commented beforehand that patients may need to undergo numerous sessions as the status of their health changes over time.
Conway explained that getting more ill after a decision has already been made may drive that patient to want to talk about matters again. Some may need counseling multiple times a year while others may not require any session in a year at all.
Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer said that the new rule of Medicare is a turning point for the care of patients facing end-of-life. In the future, he said that patients should also have easy access to advanced directives and that the medical team should be trained well to handle these talks. Finally, he said that the care given should be in accordance with the objectives, values and informed choices identified by the patient.
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