Hospice News

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Texas-based Choice Health at Home LLC has inked a deal to acquire Lumicare Hospice, growing its presence in two current markets while establishing services in a new state. Lumicare Hospice has locations in Texas and Arizona, two states in Choice’s existing service region. Hospice utilization in the state reached 50.4%

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 8, 2023

The durable medical equipment (DME) provider National HME has acquired Hospice Source, also a DME company. The Texas-based company developed its Hospice Cloud Pro technology platform to facilitate consolidated equipment ordering and provide clients with data on utilization, cost trends, and network management for reporting and analytics. “We

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Hospice News

MARCH 8, 2024

Variations in hospice certificate of need (CON) state laws are raising program integrity concerns. What ends up happening in states without CON is actually lower hospice utilization with way too many hospices in one service area, and often fragmented care without all four levels of hospice offered,” Ponder-Stansel told Hospice News.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 30, 2023

A rising number of hospices have undergone name changes in recent years, prompting many to consider the elements of an effective rebranding strategy. Hospices should avoid brand names that are too generic or that focus on one particular service line or portion of their geographic footprint.

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Hospice News

APRIL 19, 2024

Sierra is the palliative care arm of California-based Hospice of the Foothills, designed to care for nonterminal patients who have serious or chronic conditions. Sierra’s parent organization, the nonprofit Hospice of the Foothills, had previously collaborated with Mettle on a conference held last year.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 22, 2023

Many seniors have experienced some form of trauma or abuse in their lifetime, which can carry impacts for those both delivering and receiving hospice care. This is the first of a two-part series that will examine the challenges that hospice patients and employees face related to abuse and trauma experiences and how providers respond.

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Hospice News

MARCH 14, 2024

Hospices, in aggregate, are showing improvement on the quality measure for visits in the last days of life. In Calendar Year 2021, the share of hospice care days with nurse visits in the last seven days of life rose to 63%, up from 62% year over year, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

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Hospice News

MARCH 3, 2023

The families of patients who received care from nonprofit hospices give their providers higher marks on quality than those who went with for-profits, a RAND Corp. These findings are particularly pressing given the striking growth of for-profit hospices, which have profit incentives that have been shown to affect how they care for patients.”

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Hospice News

MARCH 8, 2024

Tightened regulation in the hospice space has led to longer, more stringent diligence processes when it comes to buying and selling provider companies. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has honed in on hospice program integrity through a number of new regulations, including some in the agency’s 2024 hospice final rule.

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Hospice News

APRIL 10, 2024

A lack of trained staff and evolving health laws are among the leading barriers to expanding perinatal palliative and hospice care among underserved populations. With regards to racial disparity, we know it’s out there,” Fisher told Hospice News. That drives who goes to perinatal hospice and who receives a certain type of care.

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Hospice News

MAY 1, 2023

On June 1, LifeTouch Hospice will merge with Arkansas Hospice. Both hospices are owned and operated by the SHARE Foundation, a nonprofit, faith-based organization. The hospice last year served 430 patients in a five-county region of Arkansas. Meanwhile, Arkansas Hospice has fared better.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 7, 2023

Allowing patients to receive concurrent hospice and curative care reduces health care costs and improves quality. Initially slated to complete in 2020, CMS later extended it until December 2021. We really didn’t find subgroups that were not benefiting from the model,” Kranker told Hospice News. “We

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Hospice News

JANUARY 5, 2024

Recent years have seen an uptick in consolidation activity among nonprofits in the hospice space. To achieve these kinds of growth, hospices must consider whether they should affiliate or buy another company outright. In the intervening months, Hope Hospice also joined the transaction.

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Hospice News

AUGUST 2, 2023

California-based Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest integrated health systems, has opened a hospice de novo on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. The new location is the most recent of a series of investments that Kaiser has made in the home setting, including hospice and palliative care. Based on 2020 U.S.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Hospices tend to see an increase in dementia patient admissions as well as home-based utilization following an acquisition by a private equity firm or a publicly traded company. After an acquisition by a public company, hospices saw a 1.4% A little more than 20% of hospice decedents in 2020 suffered from dementia, up from 18.5%

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Hospice News

MAY 6, 2024

Hospices may be under-prepared to navigate the complexities in end-of-life decisions among terminally ill children, as the ethical and moral considerations related to patient autonomy are vastly different for pediatric populations compared to adults.

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Hospice News

APRIL 29, 2022

The Medicare Advantage hospice carve-in has been the focus of much attention among providers, and many are watching closely for the demonstration’s outcomes. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched the MCCM in 2016 to explore the idea of allowing hospice patients to receive concurrent curative care.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 10, 2023

COVID-19 cases are rising in various parts of the country with potential implications for hospice and palliative care operators. Ungerleider told Hospice News in an email. The population to whom hospice and palliative care operators provide care is among the most vulnerable. Mortality rates are well below those seen in 2020.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 8, 2024

Private equity firms in the hospice space are adapting their “roll-up” strategies as economic uncertainties persist. While PE firms are not abandoning the hospice space, they are slowing their momentum, according to Mark Kulik, senior managing director for the M&A advisory firm The Braff Group.

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Hospice News

MARCH 28, 2024

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued its 2025 proposed rule for hospice payment, which if finalized would include a 2.6% The proposed hospice cap amount for Fiscal Year 2025 is $34,364.85, up from $33,494.01 Upon implementation, this tool will replace the Hospice Item Set. The post CMS Proposes 2.6%

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Hospice News

JANUARY 11, 2024

Fortis Health has acquired Indiana-based Physiocare Home Health and Hospice. Grant Avenue Capital, Fortis’ private equity backer, financed the deal, which is the company’s fourth since its founding in 2020. Similar to national trends, demographics are accelerating demand for hospice in the Hoosier State. This is up from 16.4%

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Hospice News

APRIL 22, 2024

Hospices that see higher numbers of patients in assisted living facilities tend to have lower quality scores than other providers, research has found. The findings point to possibly growing gaps of unmet needs among hospice patients in assisted living (AL) settings, according to the researchers.

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Hospice News

MARCH 13, 2024

In case you missed it, Hospice News has launched a new specialty publication for palliative care professionals. VITAS Healthcare Corporation has penned an agreement to acquire Covenant Health and Community Services’ hospice operations and one of its assisted living facility locations for $85 million.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 27, 2023

With burnout as a major cause of turnover, hospices are applying technology to take some of the pressure off of staff in hopes of boosting retention. Hospice nurses pointed to this issue as their number-one concern about their jobs in a recent survey by The Amity Group. Nurses are saying, ‘I love being a hospice nurse.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 14, 2022

seen in 2020, with the slowdown largely attributed to reduced spending on COVID-19 support, including Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and the Provider Relief Fund (PRF). These sources continue to provide funding in 2021, but at much lower levels and in 2020.”. in 2020, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

The organizations had a prior connection through the Florida Hospice and Palliative Care Association, as well as a joint venture with several other providers, the Responsive Care Solutions Accountable Care Organization (ACO). After closing with Trustbridge, the organization will operate seven hospice brands.

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Hospice News

MAY 30, 2023

Though nonprofit hospices now represent a smaller slice of the industry than in years past, they continue to care for more than half of patients in the United States who elect the benefit. The number of hospices operating nationwide rose to 5,3,58 in 2021, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.

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Hospice News

MARCH 8, 2023

High valuations have led Addus HomeCare (NASDAQ: ADUS) to pivot towards personal care and home health deals rather than hospice acquisitions. Hospice multiples broke records in 2020, 2021 and 2022, reaching as high as 29x. Hospice is still very expensive. Combined, home health and hospice account for the remaining 25%.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

Given the critical role of family caregivers in home-based care, hospices have a vested interest in expanding their access to support. And while hospices offer social workers and spiritual care, many families continue to have unmet needs that could impede some patients’ access to hospice.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 26, 2024

Rebranding a hospice company following a merger or acquisition is a more complex process than it may seem at first blush. Even if they have a lot in common, there’s a lot of legwork that needs to be done to really get the internal team on board with the effort,” Massey told Hospice News. “So

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

As hospices prepare for Medicare Advantage, more nonprofits are finding that creating partnerships or entering affiliations will better position themselves for payer negotiations. Nonprofit hospice affiliations have surged in 2022 and 2023. These relationships can help generate cost savings and bolster hospices’ bargaining power.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 31, 2024

The Texas-based home health and hospice company VitalCaring Group was built largely through acquisitions, and the company expects to step up that strategy in 2024 with an emphasis on hospice. The big question mark right now is what home health and hospice multiples are going to look like. Not a lot right now.

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Hospice News

MAY 15, 2024

Hospices need a greater understanding of both the depth of these patients’ suffering and the scope of their unique needs to improve trauma-informed care delivery, Kotwal said at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) and the Hospice & Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) Annual Assembly.

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Hospice News

AUGUST 17, 2023

As Jimmy Carter marks his sixth month in hospice care, the provider community is raising awareness by saluting the former president. The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) convened a group of hospice leaders at Times Square in New York City to commemorate Carter’s hospice experience.

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Hospice News

OCTOBER 24, 2023

Revocations of the hospice benefit can have serious adverse effects on patients and families, as well as providers. Live discharges can occur for a number of reasons, including the patient or family changing their minds about receiving hospice care, or the patient improves and no longer needs those services. About 15.4% Of those, 5.7%

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 26, 2024

Hospice operators in 2024 are navigating a rapidly transforming environment. The prior three years have laid the groundwork for change, particularly in the regulatory space as well as gradual migration towards value-based reimbursement and in tandem, the proliferation of business lines beyond hospice.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 6, 2023

The presence of private equity firms in the hospice arena has expanded exponentially during the past several years. Only three hospice M&A transactions occurred during the third quarter of 2023, down from eight in Q2. Heartland Hospice is headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, with locations in 26 states.

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