Objective: Recent growth in hospice has raised concerns about variability in access and quality. This study examines U.S. county-level presence of hospice providers. Methods: Quality was assessed using 2023 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Hospice Survey Star Ratings. County-level sociodemographic characteristics were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2023 five-year sample. Results: Of 7024 hospice providers, 29.2% had publicly available ratings, of which 55.3% were high quality (>3 stars). Of 3222 counties, at least one hospice provider was located in 41.4%, and a high-quality provider was present in 23.6%. Counties with high-quality providers tend to be urban and have higher income, larger populations, higher education, and lower poverty and uninsurance rates. Conclusions: Many U.S. counties have no hospice providers. The presence of high-quality care is markedly lower in rural and poor counties. Missing star ratings limit the utility of public quality data for patient and family decision-making.
Whitman et al. (Wed,) studied this question.