As More Hospices Enroll Patients Who Aren't Dying, Questions About Lethal Doses Arise

Jeff Coffey

Clinard “Bud” Coffey, 77, a retired corrections officer, did the crossword in The Charlotte Observer after breakfast every morning, pursued his hobby of drawing cartoons, talked seven or eight times a day to his son Jeff and, just two weeks before his death, told a pal that he still felt “like a teenager.”

He did, however, have some chronic back pain, and in late March he was enrolled in hospice care “essentially for pain management,” his doctor said. Over a two week period, he received rising doses of morphine and other powerful drugs, grew sleepy and disoriented, and stopped breathing, dying peacefully at home, according to his family and medical records they provided.

His death certificate, which was signed by the hospice doctor, listed the cause as “renal cell carcinoma” or kidney cancer. But that doctor had never examined Coffey, his family said, and medical records from just a few weeks earlier do not mention it.

“My dad wasn’t dying of cancer,” said his son, Jeff Coffey. “Once he was on hospice, their answer for everything was more drugs. Everything we know about his death is consistent with an overdose.”

An attorney for the hospice company, Curo Health, said it could not comment on the case without authorization from Coffey’s family. When Jeff Coffey authorized the company to comment, however, the attorney said that the company would not comment because the Coffey family had hired an attorney in preparation for a lawsuit.

The hospice industry in the United States is booming and for good reason, many experts say. Hospice care can offer terminally ill patients a far better way to live out their dying days, and many vouch for its value.

But the boom has been accompanied by what appears to be a surge in hospices enrolling patients who aren't close to death, and at least in some cases, this practice can expose the patients to the more powerful pain-killers that are routinely used by hospice providers. Hospices see higher revenues by recruiting new patients and profit more when they are not near death.

There are no statistics on how often such abuses may be occurring. But complaints from around the country illustrate the potential dangers of enrolling patients in hospice even though they are not near death, the families involved say.

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As More Hospices Enroll Patients Who Aren't Dying, Questions About Lethal Doses Arise

See Also:
Terminal Neglect?  How Some Hospices Treat Dying Patients

Is That Hospice Safe?  Infrequent Inspections Means it May Be Impossible to Know

Rising Rates of Hospice Discharge in U.S. Raises Questions About Quality of Care