Five years after his legislative provision to authorize Medicare and Medicaid payment for end-of-life counseling was stripped from the then-pending Obamacare legislation, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) got what he wanted last week in the new physician payment rules.
The next challenge to improving care for the aging and the dying is to ballyhoo the new payment mechanisms and encourage physicians to actually provide the end-of-life counseling.
Read Full Article »