Recent research has found that varying state laws around palliative care can impact cancer patients’ place of death. Cancer patients in states with laws that require health care providers to provide palliative consultations were more likely to die in the home or in an inpatient hospice setting versus the hospital, a JAMA Network Open study […]
National Academy for State Health Policy
The channels for palliative care payment may be widening as more state legislators recognize growing demand for these services and start to weave them into Medicaid reimbursement. More than 15 states have rolled out bills to direct Medicaid agencies and other state authorities to research the ability to implement a dedicated palliative care benefit or […]
The New Jersey legislature is considering a bill that would create a community-based palliative care benefit within the state’s Medicaid program. A state Senate committee has voted to move forward with the bill, S-3729A, introduced by Democratic State Senator Richard Codey. “Palliative care in the home or the local community can dramatically improve the quality […]
Without family caregivers, many hospice patients would be unable to receive care in their homes. To help keep patients at home — the lowest-cost setting of care — the federal government recently unveiled a National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers, which has more than two decade’s worth of advocacy behind it. The U.S. Department of […]
Stretching back more than a decade, a rising number of states have passed laws designed to raise awareness of hospice and palliative care, but to date, few if any have achieved measurable results. The reasons for this run the gamut. During the past two years, for instance, state governments and health care organizations have been […]
Massachusetts legislators recently allocated more than $8.7 million in the state’s 2023 fiscal year budget to support pediatric palliative care access. The funding is intended to support expanded palliative care services for seriously and terminally ill children amid rising demand. Massachusetts State Sen. Sal DiDomenico has been a primary advocate of pediatric palliative care in […]
Internal and government vaccine requirements have hospices walking a fine line between the need to protect staff, patients and their families while also considering employees’ personal choices and medical or religious exemptions. Hospice leaders have shown concern that vaccine mandates could exacerbate long standing industry-wide staffing shortages, which have worsened during the pandemic. Hospice & […]
The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) has rolled out a publicly accessible database that tracks state policies on palliative care and related services. Development of the database comes at a time when public policy is evolving to facilitate the rising demand for serious illness care. Developed in concert with the Solomon Center for Health […]
The National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and the National Minority Health Association (NMHA) are partnering to increase vaccination rates among the home health and hospice workforce. The combined $11.1 million effort, part of NMHA’s Flex for Checks program, aims to break down barriers preventing vaccination and curb the rising tide of COVID-19. […]
The year 2020 brought unprecedented disruption to the hospice space, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The outbreak strained providers ability to provide care, access patients in homes and facilities and to maintain a healthy bottom line in light of lost revenues and rising costs. Despite these challenges and economic headwinds, hospices adapted, improvised and […]
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