Black patients and their families are less likely to sign up for end-of-life comfort care. To reach them, investors are starting hospice agencies run by people who look like the patients they serve.
Black Medicare patients and their families are not making the move to comfort care as often as white patients. Experts speculate it’s related to spiritual beliefs and mistrust in the medical system.
This time, it didn’t take much persuading for Mary Murphy to embrace home hospice. When her mother was dying from Alzheimer’s disease in 2020, she had been reluctant until she saw what a help it was. So when her husband, Willie, neared the end of his life, she embraced hospice again.
Black patients and their families are less likely to sign up for end-of-life comfort care. To reach them, investors are starting hospice agencies run by people who look like the patients they serve.