Report 2021-123 Recommendation Responses
Report 2021-123: California Hospice Licensure and Oversight: The State's Weak Oversight of Hospice Agencies Has Created Opportunities for Large-Scale Fraud and Abuse (Release Date: March 2022)
Recommendation for Legislative Action
To protect against excessive and fraudulent growth in the number of hospice agencies, the Legislature should revise state law to require new, previously unlicensed hospice agencies to demonstrate an unmet need for hospice services in an area where they wish to operate. The
law should require that the number of hospice agencies in a given geographic region closely aligns with measures of the need for hospice services. It should also define appropriate measures of need and identify the methodology hospice agencies must use to demonstrate need.
Description of Legislative Action
AB 2673 (Ch. 797, Stats. of 2022) revises and expands the department's application requirements, and it additionally requires an applicant for a hospice agency license to, as a condition of licensure, demonstrate and provide evidence of an unmet need of hospice services in the geographic region the hospice would serve, except under specified circumstances. However, this bill neither requires that the number of hospice agencies in a given geographic region closely align with measures of need for hospice services, nor does it define the appropriate measures of need and identify the methodology hospice agencies must use to demonstrate need.
- Legislative Action Current As-of: January 2023