Moderator
Jennie Chin Hansen, RN
Chief Executive Officer
American Geriatrics Society
Participants
Paul Malley
President
Aging With Dignity
Daniel O’Brien, PhD
Senior Vice President, Ethics, Discernment And Church Relations
Ascension Health
Randall Krakauer, MD
Vice President, National Medical Director, Medical Strategy
Aetna
Samira K. Beckwith, LCSW
President And Chief Executive Officer
Hope HealthCare Services
William Novelli
Co-Chair And Professor
Coalition to Transform Advanced Care and McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, respectively
Carmella A. Bocchino, RN
Executive Vice President
Clinical Affairs and Strategic Planning, America’s Health Insurance Plans
Another hearing to advance the policy of "advanced directives" as being absolutely necessary to deliver fair "end-of-life" medical treatment to Medicare/Medicaid patients who have paid SS and Medicare taxes all of their working lives.
ReplyDeleteNow! Medicare is going to pay Medicare eligible patients $75.00 if they will prepare advanced directives to be provided to their physician/hospitals. Advanced directives are biased toward hastening death/shortening life and cancelling full code coverage in the hospitals.
If advanced directives weren't already being misused to shorten life/hasten death for fiscal expediency, this might be a good idea.
But! the epidemic of covert/overt DNR code status in the charts of the elderly/disabled that shortens the lives of Medicare/Medicaid patients without their informed consent because of fiscal expediency is a warning, isn't it?
If, and when, Hospice is no longer voluntary and mandatory, will will be able to trust the for-profit Hospice industry who manages death for profits after managed care for profits is no longer reimbursed by CMS and Big Insurance?
Dan O'Brian, PHD, in his testimony at the Senate hearing indicates that "euthanasia and the inappropriate prolongation of dying" are "both wrong."
But, of course, by defining elderly/disabled patients "terminal" in a longer time frame than six months, will this mean that end-of-life savings will be realized when life-extending and life-saving treatments will not even be offered or reimbursed by Medicare?
Will the elderly/disabled be locked out of emergency rooms and hospitals as a matter of public policy? .