Three important considerations can help hospices recruit and retain social workers: a respectful workplace culture, reasonable workloads and continuing education opportunities. Workforce shortages remain the industry’s most damaging headwind, and that includes social workers. During the pandemic, those professionals have left the health care field in record numbers. Attrition rates exceeded pre-pandemic levels by 35% […]
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) recently introduced legislation aimed at improving access to advance care planning services among patients with serious illness. The Improving Access to Advance Care Planning Act would expand utilization of these services by removing Medicare payment barriers faced by both providers and patients. The bill proposes to […]
Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation this morning to create a National Strategy on Grief and establish grants to fund trauma-informed care for the bereaved. If enacted the bill would allocate dollars for hospice and palliative care providers, other health care organizations, grief counselors, youth-focused nonprofits, and schools to foster greater support for the bereaved. […]
If enacted, the recently reintroduced Palliative Care and Hospice Education Training Act (PCHETA) could make a dent in the recruitment barriers that hospices keep hitting. But clinical education will need a much larger boost to ensure a sustainable workforce, according to many providers. The training issue is a serious impediment to hospice recruitment, as very […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred an extensive need for additional bereavement care, as the nation contends with the grief of more than 400,000 deaths. Hospice providers routinely provide grief services to their entire communities, regardless of whether residents’ loved ones were their patients, but many may need additional resources if they are to meet the […]
A national study of hospice social workers indicated that the coronavirus pandemic has led to challenges of isolation, barriers to communication, and issues related to grieving among patients and the caregivers who support them. As hospice providers absorb the lessons of COVID-19, these issues have illuminated a growing need to allow in-home respite care, with […]
Hospice social workers can play a key role in addressing matters of social justice and health care equity when working with patients in underserved populations such as the mentally ill, the LGBTQ+ community and people of color. Lack of funding and interdisciplinary research are among the barriers of improving access to care for these groups, […]
The ongoing social isolation and distancing measures to reduce spread of the coronavirus pandemic has challenged a vital element of social and psychosocial services in the realm of hospice care. As the outbreak continues impacting communities throughout the nation, hospice social workers have become adaptive to continue serving patients and families in need. At the […]
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