CHAP Designing ‘Age-Friendly’ Certification for Hospice, Home Health Providers

Community Health Accreditation Partner (CHAP) is developing a certification program designed to apply the Age-Friendly Health Systems “4Ms” framework into the home health and hospice settings. Providers that have adopted this approach have seen “dramatic improvement” in patient satisfaction, clinician satisfaction and retention, improved revenue growth and cost savings, as well as higher rates of […]

Congress Mulls Bills to Investigate Travel Nurse Agency Business Practices

Many hospices have relied heavily on travel nurse agencies to reinforce their clinical teams during the pandemic. Now, a pair of bills currently before Congress would require a federal study of those agencies’ impact on health care. The Travel Nursing Agency Transparency Study Act would instruct the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the […]

The Case for Integrating Social Determinants Into Palliative Care

Individually, palliative care and social determinants programs both have the potential to improve quality of life and reduce costs — but that potential may be greater when the two are combined. Social determinants are non-medical needs that can have a significant impact on the trajectory of patients’ health, such as nutrition, transportation, social or caregiver […]

House Votes to Extend Sequestration Moratorium for Hospice, Other Providers

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to extend the moratorium on Medicare payment sequestration through Dec. 31. The moratorium, established through the CARES Act, was set to expire March 31. The bill will now go to the Senate. In Dec. 2020 Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and David McKinley (R-WV) introduced the Medicare Sequester COVID Moratorium […]