by: Eric Widera ( @ewidera ) Two reports came out last week that can easily lead one to opposite conclusions about the current state of hospice care in the U.S. The first was a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report on how hospice care is being used too early in the course of a Medicare beneficiary’s illness . The article can pretty much be summarized by its subheading: “More dementia patients and others who die slowly are receiving care, causing costs to rise." NHPCO has a good response to the article , which I will not summarize here except by saying that my favorite line from it was : “People do not come with an expiration date, nor does their end-of life-care.” While I agree with NHPCO's response, I still found the WSJ article fascinating, in particular the finding that beneficiaries who were enrolled in hospice for more than 365 days accounted for about 32% of Medicare hospice payments. More striking is that those with very long lengths of hospice lengths of sta