The Biden administration is fielding calls for a new Medicare experiment that would provide in-home symptom management, pain relief and other services to non-hospice patients with serious chronic illnesses.
Currently, this home-based palliative care, which focuses on patient comfort and improved quality-of-life, is only available in traditional Medicare through the hospice benefit for patients with less than six months to live.
But as more beneficiaries with underlying health conditions either contract Covid-19, or shun medical care for fear of contracting it, the need for more home-, or “community-based,” palliative care has grown.
“If you think about Covid, you’re home, you’re...