House Passes Package, Gerald's Law Included

This week, the Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act (H.R. 8371) passed the House by an overwhelming majority. This bill included a provision based on Gerald's Law (H.R. 234 / S. 1330), impacting Veterans who elect hospice care outside of a Veterans Affairs (VA) facility. Under current law, many Veterans who pass away outside of a VA facility while receiving VA-furnished hospice care do not receive their full burial benefits, as their passing is not considered a "death under VA care." This error must be fixed so that all Veterans have equal access to burial benefits, no matter where they receive end-of-life-care.

This is a huge step in fixing a grave injustice for Veterans and their families in hospice care. Now, the Dole Act must pass the Senate, with the Gerald's Law provisions included.

ACT NOW to tell Congress that Veterans deserve to make critical end-of-life care decisions based on comfort, not cost.

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Action: Fix the Hospice Special Focus Program

CMS plans to carry out a program based on bad data that will fail patients and providers. The Hospice Special Focus Program (SFP) is based on incomplete data that will misinform patients and families with inaccurate hospice performance rankings. The bipartisan Enhancing Hospice Oversight and Transparency Act (H.R. 10097) will delay the SFP and allow CMS time to fix the program, preventing great harm to patients, families, and providers.

The Hospice Special Focus Program calculates and ranks hospice providers through survey data and quality reporting. But these calculations rely on missing quality data and out-of-date  surveys. This risks inaccurate hospice rankings and threatens to misinform patients and families. H.R. 10097 will prevent great harm to patients and providers by delaying the hospice SFP until surveys are up-to-date and will increase penalties for providers who withhold quality data.

ACT NOW to urge Congress to support H.R. 10097 and ensure that millions of patients and families get the right information at the most crucial time.

Protect Patients