Hospice Consulting Services

Betsy Murphy is an expert on hospice eligibility. She has served in hospice operations as a Vice President in addition to working in marketing and business relations during the 30 years she has worked for hospice.

She helps hospices in three ways:

• She writes Additional Development Request (“ADR”) letters and defends ADR denials.
• She evaluates clinical staff documentation and develops customized educational programs to improve documentation for eligibility.
• She helps hospices to understand which patients are truly hospice-eligible and how to support referral sources in identifying and referring those patients.

Betsy’s training as a Family Nurse Practitioner with a certification in Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing makes her an ideal candidate to write appeal letters for hospices. As a writer with a strong clinical background, she writes compelling letters written in the language of the Local Coverage Determinations (“LCDs”). Those letters are then signed by the contracting hospice’s medical director. When the disease-specific LCD is outdated, she provides scholarly articles with relevant research that can be submitted with the letters to further support hospice eligibility.

She has written hundreds of successful Additional Development Request (“ADR”), Redetermination and Reconsideration letters and has a proven track record of overturning denials. She has successfully argued hospice eligibility in Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) Hearings. Her references are furnished upon request.

When hospices outsource ADR letters, it frees the staff to do what they do best, provide excellent care.

Once the clinical staff documentation is evaluated, customized education is essential to increase the paid vs. denied ADR ratio and to prevent cash flow problems. As a trainer, Betsy’s clinical background allows her to “talk the talk” with staff, providing them with better assessment skills and more descriptive wording. Betsy additionally provides training for hospice marketing staff to help referral sources identify and refer hospice-eligible patients. Contact Betsy Murphy