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Baptist Health Hospice

205 N 26Th St Ste. B -, Arkadelphia, AR 71923

(870) 245-1040
C

Average

60 / 100

Ownership
Other
Medicare certified
July 1996
Patients on any given day
9
CCN
041554

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Baptist Health Hospice, ElderGrade C summary card

This is the card people see when this page is shared or linked, built from the same federal figures shown above.

What to ask about before you visit

These are findings in the public CMS record for this hospice. They are not our opinion, each one comes straight from the federal hospice quality file or the CMS family caregiver survey.

  • Only 16% of patients were visited in their final days

    CMS measures how often a registered nurse or social worker visited in the last three days of life. Ask who will come, how quickly, and what happens at night and at the weekend.

  • 23% of live discharges happened soon after admission

    A high early live-discharge rate can mean patients are being enrolled who were not eligible for hospice. Ask what happens to your Medicare hospice benefit if you are discharged.

  • Patients are sent to hospital and dropped from care more often than usual

    15% of live discharges here were a hospital admission followed by the hospice ending care. CMS calls this a burdensome transition.

What this costs you

If the patient has Medicare Part A and a doctor certifies a life expectancy of six months or less, the Medicare Hospice Benefit pays this provider directly. The family pays nothing for hospice visits, nursing, medicines related to the terminal illness, or equipment. No hospice may charge you for those and none may ask for a deposit. Medicare paid this provider an average of $12,285 per patient over the measurement period. That is what the federal government spent, not what a family pays, we publish it because it is the number the provider is paid on.

How we graded it

Our method
  • Family caregiver experience

    19.5 / 30

    What bereaved family caregivers said about the hospice afterwards, in the CMS-run CAHPS Hospice Survey.

    • No family survey published, CMS suppresses results below a minimum number of completed surveys. Scored just under the national average rather than guessed at, because suppression tracks how small a hospice is, not how good it is
  • Presence at the end

    10 / 25

    Whether a nurse or social worker was actually there in the final days, which is the single thing families remember.

    • 16% of patients had a nurse or social worker visit in their last three days (national median 61%)
  • Nursing presence

    13 / 20

    How much registered-nurse time patients get, and how often visits lapse for days at a time.

  • Discharge integrity

    9.75 / 15

    How often patients are signed off hospice alive, the pattern that shows up when a provider enrols people who were never dying, or drops people who become expensive.

  • Care process

    7.5 / 10

    Whether the basics were done at admission: pain screened, breathlessness treated, treatment preferences and beliefs asked about.

    • 98% of admissions got the full set of screenings (national median 96.5%)

Was anyone there at the end?

Hospice is judged on the last few days more than anything else. These are this provider's numbers against the national average.

Patients visited by a nurse or social worker in their last three days16%
National average 56%Below average
Patients who had a visit close to death81%
Admissions that got the full set of screenings, pain, breathlessness, treatment wishes, beliefs98%
National average 92%Better than average
Nurse minutes per routine home care day7.7 min
National average 20.1 minBelow average

What bereaved families said

CMS has not published survey results for this hospice. It only reports them once enough family caregivers have completed the questionnaire, so smaller providers often have none. That is a gap in the data, not a mark against the provider, ask them directly whether they run their own bereavement survey and what it showed.

Where they provide care

  • In their own home 86%
  • In a skilled nursing facility 7%
  • In an inpatient hospice unit 5%
  • In an inpatient hospital 2%

Who they care for

Main diagnosis of their patients.

  • Other conditions 28%
  • Cancer 25%
  • Dementia 20%

Questions families ask about Baptist Health Hospice

Does Baptist Health Hospice cost anything?
No. If the patient has Medicare Part A and a doctor certifies a life expectancy of six months or less, the Medicare Hospice Benefit pays Baptist Health Hospice directly for visits, nursing, equipment and medicines related to the terminal illness. The family is not billed for those and no hospice may ask for a deposit.
How often does Baptist Health Hospice visit patients in their final days?
CMS records that 16% of this hospice's patients were visited by a registered nurse or social worker in the last three days of life, against a national average of 56%.
How is Baptist Health Hospice graded?
ElderGrade grades it C, average, scoring 60 out of 100 on the federal hospice record: what bereaved families reported, visits in the last days of life, nurse time per home care day, live-discharge patterns and admission screenings. We take no payment from hospices.
Where does Baptist Health Hospice provide care?
Most of this hospice's care is delivered in their own home, 86% of its patients. Hospice is a service rather than a place, so the team travels to wherever the patient is living.

Source: CMS Hospice Provider Data (10/01/2024 - 09/30/2025) and the CAHPS Hospice Survey (10/01/2023-09/30/2025), published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. ElderGrade takes no payment from hospices, chains or placement agencies, and holds no photographs of this provider. Graded 3 November 2026. How we source our data.