Hospice News

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Offering hospice can be a gamechanger for skilled nursing and assisted living operators looking to stand out from competitors and improve patient reach. Home-based care, including hospice, has become an increasingly attractive space for facility-based health care providers of all walks. Among the 1.6

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Hospice News

MARCH 29, 2023

Though evidence shows that longer hospice stays reduce costs, providers are still walking a regulatory tightrope. On one hand, longer hospice stays can lead to improved patient and family satisfaction and greater cost saving opportunities. Are you in an outlier scenario with your data that Medicare contractors are looking at?

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

A dearth of coordination or integration between rehab teams and palliative care teams routinely forces some patients into a cycle between the hospital and the nursing home in their last year of life. Older adults frequently utilize such services, often in skilled nursing facilities (SNF).

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Hospice News

JUNE 2, 2023

Hosparus Health has acquired Baptist Health Deaconess Hospice in Madisonville, Kentucky, for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 1978, Hosparus Health’s 600 employees and 500 volunteers provide care for more than 10,000 patients annually, including hospice, medical care, palliative medicine, mental health and bereavement services. “Our

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

A federal judge has sentenced Jesus Virlar-Cadena, formerly a medical director for the Texas-based hospice company Merida Group, to 50 months in prison for his role in a $152 million scheme. Evidence at the trial showed that the Merida Group marketed their hospice programs through a group of companies,” the 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

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Medicare Advantage (MA) beneficiaries are more likely to enroll in hospice from a community setting than patients in traditional fee-for-service programs. million patients who elected hospice in the last 90 days of life during the years 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2018. This is close to half of all Medicare beneficiaries.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

The Medicare Hospice Benefit should allow some concurrent care, and Congress should support greater access to palliative care, among other reforms, according to LeadingAge. The most common comment our hospice members hear from patients and families is “why didn’t I get your services sooner?”

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

PACE programs offer a comprehensive approach to care for participants who meet certain eligibility criteria, mainly to seniors who have significant medical and non-medical needs to help them age in place and avoid the hospital or nursing homes. But they can pay us a portion of that,” Ferris told Hospice News. ”We’re

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Hospice News

JANUARY 11, 2023

Hospices should be required to report all instances of abuse and neglect, even if the perpetrator was not an employee, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires operators to report incidents of patient abuse and neglect that involve their staff. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended.

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Hospice News

MAY 5, 2023

Hospice News recently connected with Nashville-based Heart’n Soul Hospice leadership to break down some of the largest length of stay challenges that providers are facing today as the pandemic tapers to an end, and ways that referral and community outreach efforts are evolving.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 5, 2022

Louisiana-based CommCare Corporation recently acquired Notre Dame Hospice and Notre Dame Home Health for an undisclosed sum. CommCare’s purchase of Notre Dame’s home health and hospice operations marks the transaction of this divestiture Its nursing home services are next in line as part of a separate deal set to close in 2023.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 31, 2023

To a certain extent, hospices will soon be operating under pre-pandemic rules in a “post-COVID” world. The flexibilities enabled hospice and palliative care providers to maintain continuity of care while reducing safety risks, according to Ben Marcantonio, COO and interim CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 22, 2023

By the Bay Health and Mission Hospice & Home Care recently signed a letter of intent to merge the two California-organizations. The new organization – combining two of the longest-standing not-for-profit hospices in California – would be uniquely positioned to serve more patients and families.”

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Hospice News

JANUARY 19, 2023

Hospice and behavioral health care could increasingly intersect in coming years as demand for specialized care grows. In some respects, the two sectors are already inextricably linked, given the holistic nature of hospice care, including attention to patients’ psychosocial and spiritual needs as well as bereavement support for families.

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Hospice News

JANUARY 26, 2024

These include the home, skilled home care and institutional care. The study spanned data among 199,828 Medicare decedents 50 and older who died in 2018. More than half (59%) spent the last three years of life in the home. About 27% were in skilled nursing home care with “heavy use” of home health and hospice.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in 2023 will phase out dual-eligibility special needs look-alike plans within Medicare Advantage. Some hospice patients rely on these plans for other health needs, such as nursing home costs. Of those, about 3.8

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Hospice News

AUGUST 4, 2023

Alaska-based Bartlett Regional Hospital recently received approval from legislators to relaunch hospice and home health services nearly a year after a local provider shut down. Bartlett Regional Hospital in January began the process of taking over HHCJ’s hospice and home health patients to fill care delivery gaps in southeast Alaska.

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Hospice News

APRIL 11, 2024

Angela Hospice’s New Senior Living Inpatient Facility Michigan-based Angela Hospice recently unveiled plans to open a new inpatient center at a senior living facility. Set to open this summer, the hospice facility will feature 15 patient beds at Lourdes Senior Community in Waterford, Michigan. The William B. and Janet B.

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GeriPal

MARCH 10, 2022

If you develop dementia, odds are you will spend the last months to years of your life in a nursing home or assisted living facility. This study explored nursing home organizational factors and staff perceptions that are associated with the variation in care for residents with advanced dementia. Rehabbed to Death.

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Hospice News

MARCH 20, 2023

Hospices are blazing trails toward growth, each provider with its own range of strategies. Regardless of providers’ disparate methods, hospice remains a high-growth industry, expanding at an annual rate of 7% to 8% annually, Bank of America (BofA) Global Research reported in TKTK. Hospice News edited comments for length and clarity.

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High Peaks Hospice

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Often, by waiting too long to learn about possible options, like hospice care, people end up spending difficult days in the hospital or the emergency room and opportunities to be with loved ones at home are lost. Most hospice care is provided in the home – where the majority of Americans have said they would want to be at this time.

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Hospice News

MAY 2, 2023

Addus HomeCare Corporation’s (NASDAQ: ADUS) hospice segment is seeing slow but steady improvement as pandemic headwinds ease. Meanwhile, the company’s near-term acquisition sights are set more on home health than in personal care amid potential payment shifts. We believe that hospice volumes will continue to steadily improve.”

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Hospice News

MAY 8, 2023

The provider’s executive team combines Fluhart’s business experience with the clinical expertise brought by Hughes, a nurse practitioner herself. We’re growing pretty exponentially right now, especially in skilled facilities like nursing homes and such. It’s not the same as home health and hospice.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 24, 2023

VITAS saw nursing home admissions rise 9.4% and home-based admissions also dipped 7.5%. VITAS launched the initiative in an effort to improve timely access to hospice care. The decline resulted from the reinstated 2% Medicare sequestration, a 2.8% in Q4, along with a 2.7% jump from assisted living facilities.

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Hospice News

DECEMBER 6, 2023

In this Voices interview, Hospice News sits down with Susan Mills, Senior Program Director for Home Health and Hospice, ACHC, to talk about the key compliance challenges, opportunities and trends to watch in the current hospice environment. Hospice News: What career experiences do you most draw from in your role today?

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Hospice News

JANUARY 25, 2023

The nonprofit hospice provider’s subsidiary — Care Guide Partners — has applied to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for a PACE license, according to CEO David Cook. Before coming to Hosparus in 2021, Cook led an organization in North Carolina that offered both hospice and PACE.

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GeriPal

JUNE 22, 2023

Summary Transcript Summary In the early 1990’s, California Medical Facility (CMF) created one of the nation’s first licensed hospice units inside a prison. Keith per many reports, is the heart and sole of the hospice unit and oversees the Pastoral Care Workers. Eric: Wait, so Bonnie Raitt sang a song about hospice in prison?

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Hospice News

JANUARY 16, 2023

They found a 95% increase in hospice or palliative utilization among veterans served by VA providers participating in the agency’s Social Work Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT). They included VA hospice encounters in the outcome but not enrollment in a home hospice program, nursing home hospice center or Medicare-paid hospice.

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Hospice News

FEBRUARY 21, 2023

To get by, he took a job in the IT department of a nursing home, where he quickly realized that health care technology could use an upgrade. In recent years, he’s prioritized building new lines of communication with policymakers on driving more care into the home and where technology fits into that movement.

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Hospice News

MAY 4, 2022

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has reimbursed palliative care through a fee-for-service model that only covers physician and licensed independent practitioner services, rather than the full range of interdisciplinary care. Historically, the U.S. PalliCare has a two-fold approach within its care and business models.

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Hospice News

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

The company foresees opportunities to collaborate with other providers in the care continuum, including primary care physicians, home health, and hospice and palliative care organizations, according to CEO and Co-Founder Kris Engskov. “On Engskov, a former president of the U.S. division of Starbucks Corp. “We

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Hospice News

APRIL 17, 2023

Hospice News spoke with three palliative care providers that have risen to these challenges. Smith said Prospero’s global measure of success is providing more days for patients at home, rather than keeping them in hospitals, nursing homes or rehab facilities. Currently, Amedisys has many new partnerships in the works.

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Hospice Nurse Hero

SEPTEMBER 13, 2022

Hospice care is delivered anywhere the patient calls home and for many elderly, this includes the nursing home. Learn how you can build better relationships with nursing homes while delivering quality hospice care. Foolproof Ways to Build Better Relationships with Nursing Homes.

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Hospice News

NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Since 2020, the company has been beleaguered by the staffing shortage, reduced lengths of stay, and disruption in skilled nursing, senior housing, and to some extent acute-care referrals. These factors, along with the return of Medicare sequestration, have contributed to declining revenues. drop among those referred from hospitals.

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High Peaks Hospice

NOVEMBER 4, 2022

Ann Merkel and some of the group of original High Peaks Hospice founders gathered to create a video to document the story of High Peaks Hospice’s beginnings. Ann Merkel grew up in New Haven, Connecticut where the first hospice in the United States started in 1974. In 1982 Medicare authorized reimbursement for hospice care.

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Hospice News

MAY 4, 2023

Historically, home-based care and hospice providers have worked primarily within Medicare fee-for-service models. Now, health care companies will have to work with a broader range of entities in order to thrive, including private insurance plans, Medicare Advantage Organizations and Medicaid managed care.

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