Is hospice a scam?

Do not ever use hospice for yourself or your loved one unless you have two weeks of life remaining. My reasons are as follows: All hospice agencies employ a medical director to over see the patients who are under their hospice care. Many of the patients are referred to hospice by that same medical director, who is a doctor. Therefore the doctors income is paid by the hospice agency. Usually, the medical director meets with the hospice staff (nurses, chaplains, social workers, designated hospice administrators) to discuss how the patient is doing. Rarely and hardly never does the medical director go to the home, skilled nursing facility or where the patient lives. Most communication to the doctor comes from the nurse. The doctor usually supplements his income as a medical director. In addition, all hospice agencies hire recruiters or liasons. These recruiters and liasons jobs are to go out to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, doctors office and beg for patients. Sometimes recruiters and liasons will lie to you about what you will receive from hospice. Their job is tp get you to sign the paper work and increase their volume of patients. You are just a number! They may be nice and kind, smiling about it. But, their objective, as I said, is to get you to sign the paper work. Some agencies require recruiters and liasons to meet a quota. As a patient of a hospice company, you are assigned a registered nurse, home health person who gives the patient a bath, a social worker, a chaplain and some hospice agencies have music therapy and pet therapy. All of these disciplines are nice to you, of course. Bathe you into oblivion. Some people have never been treated so nice and taken care of so well. Makes you think hospice is good for you. One of the caviats with all hospice agencies is the discontinuance of some medications. Due to the fact that if the disease they diagnose you with is to run it's full course, the person would die within six months or less. That is the criteria which must be met. Therefore, medicare nor medi-cal will pay for medications that are curative when you are diagnosed terminal. Only curative medications will hospice pay for are those that would cause a severe medical reaction, such as a heart attack, if not taken. If you want to continue on the medications hospice discontinued, you would have to pay for them. And NEVER let hospice give you morphine, especially every two to four hours. You will be dead in two days. Another observation I have witnessed, hospice does not want you to go to the hospital. If you go to the hospital and you are admitted, then hospice has to revoke you from their care otherwise, either your or hospice will receive a medical bill. Many hospice agencies will not treat urinary tract infections. That means getting lab work ( which hospice has to pay for), prescribing antibiotics (which hospice has to pay for). Hospice does not want to put out any more money than they have to. I know one gentleman whom hospice did not want to go to the hospital, he went anyway. The hospice nurse misdiagnosed his symptoms, saying it was part of his terminal illness. It was not! He was diagnosed at the hospital with meningitis at the hospital. He was treated at the hospital. Imagine having burning sensation when you urinate, and hospice wont treat it. You have to push, push, and push to get diagnostic testing. It is my belief that many hospice patients died, not due to their hospice diagnosis, but due to a medical condition that was probably nicely explained as part of the patients hospice diagnosis, when it was not! The nurses and administration are so nice about explaining symptoms away, many people believe it and don't' go to the hospital. The only way I would get on hospice is if I had days to weeks left. There are only three hospices I would choose. I have chosen these three hospices because they have been around for years. They have a large census,