Coons lauds payment for end-of-life talks

U.S. Senator Chris Coons called the new rules for end-of-life conversations from Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services “an important step forward towards encouraging more Americans to make proactive choices about their medical car and empowering individuals to spend their final days an hours on their own terms.”

The new Medicare rules authorize physicians to be compensated for holding conversations about end-of-life care preferences with their patients.

“These conversations between physicians and patients are extremely important, even though they are difficult,” Coons said. “That’s why I’m working on bipartisan legislation with a broad coalition of palliative and end-of-life care experts and religious organizations to incentivize Americans to have these conversations by reimbursing Medicare beneficiaries to create an advance care directive.”