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We all hope for some peace and comfort at the end of life. Hospices are designed to make that possible, relieving pain and providing emotional and spiritual support. But two new government studies released Tuesday morning find that the vast majority of hospices have sometimes failed to do that. And there's no easy way for consumers to distinguish the good hospices from the bad. (Jaffe, 7/9)

Over 80 percent of hospice facilities had at least one deficiency, and most of those had multiple deficiencies. One in five had a serious deficiency. “When we looked into some of the more extreme examples of how those deficiencies can impact patients, we found cases where patients were actually harmed by their hospice care,” Bliss said. (Kosnar, 7/9)

A state inspector in Missouri documented the grim details: a deep, poorly treated pressure wound on the patient’s tailbone, apparent pain that caused grimacing and — in a crisis requiring a trip to the emergency room — a “maggot infestation’’ where the feeding tube entered his abdomen. The official cited Vitas Healthcare, the nation’s largest hospice chain, for putting the patient in “immediate jeopardy,” the most severe category of violation. The inspector found that Vitas staffers had skipped home visits and failed to assess the amount of pain the patient endured. (Rowland, 7/9)