Reviews of hospice agencies reveal poor communication, other issues

A small sampling of hospice agencies’ reviews reveals that people most often have complaints about suboptimal communication and quality of care. Researchers looked at Yelp reviews for agencies in all U.S. states — one for-profit facility and one nonprofit per state, where possible — and found that 67% of them had one-star reviews, fairly evenly split between the two types of agencies. Five main themes emerged from the reviews, including poor communication and the hospice experience not aligning with what people were told to expect. Two themes concerned larger issues about the role of hospice and the meaning of a “good death.” Family members, for instance, wrote about the suffering that their loved ones endured during their last days. Given people’s increased reliance on online reviews for health care decisions, the authors suggest more government oversight of hospice agencies.