Most hospices are sliding into 2023 between a rock and a hard place, beset by headwinds, labor shortages and questions with no easy answers. Through the cracks, providers can see glimmers of improvement. A number of hospice leaders anticipate that the industry will settle into a “new normal,” having absorbed the shock of the pandemic […]
Alivia Care
More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, federal regulators are examining the ways health care providers spent the Provider Relief Fund dollars they received. The CARES Act, enacted on March 27, 2020, earmarked $175 billion for the Provider Relief Fund (PRF), designed to replace revenue that thousands of health care providers lost due to […]
What some hospices are referring to as “on-demand payroll systems” have become a way for employers to get creative financially without stretching their bottom lines too thin. Through these systems, staff can view and access their earnings in real-time, prior to traditional payroll days. With inflation and gas prices soaring, giving employees flexibility in receiving […]
Hospices have lost social worker employees at a faster rate than any health care setting in the care continuum. Social workers have left the health care field at record-high rates during the pandemic, according to data from the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation Health System Tracker. As of October 2021, attrition rates exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 35%. […]
Set to expire later this month, the public health emergency (PHE) is likely to continue, along with regulatory waivers that expanded telehealth utilization and streamlined other health care processes. As they await word, providers are growing increasingly concerned about the future of those flexibilities, and the potential financial and operational impacts if they go away […]
As they battle it out for new hires, technology is proving essential to hospices’ recruitment arsenal. The pandemic accelerated shifts in the ways hospices use tech solutions, like telehealth for patient care or video conferencing to connect with remote-working employees. A similar trend is developing around recruitment and retention. And to maximize the results, investing […]
Hospice providers are nearly desperate to recruit nurses, but their labor woes do not end there. A shortage of non-clinical staff is an additional sore spot. Providers are anticipating demand for non-clinical staff to rise as they compete for resources in an increasingly fierce labor market. Providers have seen no lights at the end of […]
Hospice inpatient centers have proliferated since the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) rebased payment rates in 2020. While reimbursement increases can foster growth, a convergence of factors complicate providers’ ability to balance a healthy margin with the expanded access to care. The 2020 rebasing instituted a 2.7% payment increase in payments for […]
Hospices are hard at work developing new business lines such as palliative care to reach patients further upstream and capitalize on value-based care opportunities. As beneficial as these services can be both to patients and providers, the importance of effective program design cannot be overstated. Florida-based Alivia Care is among a growing pool of hospice […]
Community Hospice & Palliative Care recently reopened an inpatient center on the University of Florida (UF) Health Jacksonville campus. The George and Margaret Morris Center for Caring closed in 2020 to help the hospital accommodate COVID-19 patients during the pandemic’s peak. Drops in COVID infection rates have allowed some health care providers to take their […]