The state of South Carolina is slashing its budget and that includes cutting Medicaid benefits for hospice patients.
At the end of this month, the state will eliminate Medicaid payments for all hospice patients, who are usually cancer patients in the final months of their lives.
Many hospice providers and lawmakers say those cuts could end up costing the state more than they save.
Mercy Hospice of Conway provides home health care and pain medication for about 60 patients. It's end-of-life care that hospice officials say actually saves money for the state in the long run.
"If there is no longer a hospice Medicaid benefit, then the Medicaid recipients have nowhere to go but the emergency room and if that's the case, then you talk about all kinds of diagnostics and tests and things," said Mercy's executive director, Sara-Jo Faucher.
Faucher said the cuts will cost her agency about $135,000, which she calls a fortune for the non-profit service.
"We are counting on donations to help us continue."
Like Mercy Hospice, Myrtle Beach Manor will not refuse care to anyone for failure to pay. But without Medicaid, officials there say end-of-life care for needy patients just won't be the same.
"Where they got the little extras, the extra aides, the extra time coming in, the volunteers that would stop in and read to them, they're going to lose that service," said Myrtle Beach Manor executive director Michael Beard.
State Rep. Tracy Edge sponsored a resolution calling on the state to stop the medicaid cuts. The measure passed unanimously in the House, and is now in a Senate committee.
Edge said he's heard from many hospice providers who say they know the state needs to make cuts, but this isn't the way to do it.
"It's a matter of educating our legislators to the intent, which is necessary, but the outcome is not what they're looking for," Faucher said.
Edge said President Obama's stimulus plan includes money for Medicaid and it could be enough to keep the benefits flowing for hospice.
The state Department of Health and Human Services was forced to cut $137 million and hospice care was one of many items on its list.
