I'm a retiree and very active as an amateur musician (piano/singing) in nursing homes/assisted living centers, Alzheimer's day care, etc.   I connected with a "for-profit" hospice firm that will assign me to sing/play as much as I feel like doing, but I read in a NHPC.org "talking paper" (2012) that Medicare does not recognize singing to hospice patients, except in a "bedside" format.  

This particular entity has group homes where all residents are patients and small numbers of patients mixed with large nursing home populations.   A chaplain acquires the "invitations" to sing/play, but the nature of what I do doesn't easily do bedside presentations.

My question/concern is:  Does anyone know if MEDICARE disallows credit for volunteer music presentations to more than one hospice patient at a time/session is as the NHPC paper says?

As anyone who does programs like I do knows, it's very easy to get invites to do free programs at nursing homes and I tend to pick-and-choose from that array.  However, if MEDICARE won't allow a hospice provider to take credit, it makes no sense to me to let them "find places to sing" when I can find as many as I want on my own!

As far as I know, the hospice provider entity does NOT have a music therapist on-staff or even on-call and so far, I've not encountered R.N.'s who can speak to the issue of music included in care-plans.

Thanks in advance for any knowledge/insights that can be shared.

Dave

San Antonio, Texas

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  • From what I understand, they will not allow credit for playing for groups, but if the patient in your hospice attends the group ,you can claim credit for that patient.We are doing a program called Music & Memory you can look that up. We can claim time for that.

               Thanks Virginia

  • Hi Dave,

    I'm a harpist and have played at hospices and nursing homes for hospice patients.  Some hospice patients I have played for preferred to be out of their room, either not to disturb other residents in their room or to allow my playing to also be heard and enjoyed by other residents as well.  I have been playing for over 15 years and have never heard of such a restriction.  Often I am at the bedside but there are many times where a patient benefits from the music without being in bed.

    I know that Medicare specifically says nothing about this for sure.  Regulators that accredit and certify hospices may disallow credit for your playing if it is not directly for a specific patient.  NHPCO is not a regulating authority. They may suggest guidelines and are knowledgeable about CMS regulations but they do not make the rules.

    I also used to play at the nursing station of a children's hospice for the benefit of the exhausted parents who came home from work in the evenings to be with their dying children.  As a volunteer my roles was to serve both the patient and the family.

    I personally would disregard this claim.  I have never been required to state whether or not the patient I played for was in bed. If you are going to the facility and are playing for a specific patient you are assigned to, no matter where they are located in the facility, you are benefiting that patient.  No one can dispute that and I highly doubt anyone would question the validity of why you were there.

    I would take the advice of the hospice you are representing as a volunteer.  It is not your responsibility to worry about such things if you are acting on their behalf.

    Greg Schneider
    Founder & President
    Hospice Volunteer Association

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