Katrina Agnew joined UnityPoint Health in December 2021 as vice president of hospice. Though professionally she has cared for terminally ill patients for more than 30 years, her personal experience after her mother’s diagnosis with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer underscored the critical importance of her work. This drives her commitment to expand access to hospice […]
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. But for the past four years, a lesser-known payment model demo, the Medicare Care Choices Model (MCCM), has been hitting every target — reducing costs, improving quality and family satisfaction, and keeping […]
Amedisys (NASDAQ: AMED) subsidiary Contessa Health is seeing strong patient engagement for its expanded home-based palliative care program, which the company launched in January in partnership with Mount Sinai Health System in New York. Tennessee-based Contessa Health provides a continuum of home-based care, including high-acuity services such as hospital-at-home and skilled-nursing-at-home services. Home health and […]
As it nears its planned Enhabit spinoff, Encompass Health Corporation (NYSE: EHC) continues to see workforce improvements and a decreased reliance on costly staffing agencies. Its hospice business, however, remains in a difficult spot. Encompass Health has taken a number of steps to improve its clinician recruitment and retention rates, including investing in upskilling programs, […]
Maryland-based Hospice of the Chesapeake has penned an agreement to acquire nearby Calvert Hospice for an undisclosed amount. Both organizations are nonprofits. The two providers have collaborated for several years in a collaborative sharing best practices and supporting growth in specific markets, according to Hospice of the Chesapeake Communications Director Sandra Dillon. “Given the rapidly […]
Eight months after closing, Humana’s (NYSE: HUM) $5.7 billion acquisition of Kindred at Home is bearing fruit. The company has seen significant growth in its home health business and is on the cusp of divesting the hospice segment at a sizable valuation. Earlier this month the company signed a definitive agreement to sell a 60% […]
VITAS Healthcare, a subsidiary of Chemed Corp. (NYSE: CHEM), is going toe-to-toe against referral disruption and continuing workforce pressures. The company came out of the first quarter bruised, but still on its feet. The pandemic continues to impact the company’s facility-based referral sources, particularly with the Omicron surge that lasted through much of the first […]
Nurse practitioner Raphael and registered nurse Britt Akobundu, a married couple, launched San Diego-based Blue Monarch Hospice this past March, with the intent of improving the quality of life for not only patients and families, but also health care workers. CEO Raphael Akobundu recently sat down with Hospice News to discuss the couple’s experience of […]
For better or worse, value-based care may be the most influential concept in 21st Century health care. And with the advent of new payment models, hospices are no longer on the outside of those programs looking in. While value-based care has sound underlying principles — improving quality and lowering costs — stakeholders often discuss these […]
Race and socioeconomic status continue to deepen disparities in access to end-of-life care across the country. Recent research from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey has revealed gaps in hospice referrals and palliative care consultations among underserved patient populations in the state. African-American and Hispanic patients had “significantly lower odds” of receiving a hospice referral […]
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