The following guest post is adopted from the blog of Glatfelter Healthcare, NHPCO Strategic Partner.  With the hospice volunteer requirement of five percent returning in January of 2024, now is a great time for hospice professionals to put on their volunteer recruiter hats. Many hospices have found it challenging to keep volunteers engaged post-pandemic. National averages show that hospices lost between 30 to 50 percent of the volunteers they had before COVID-19 hit. Some hospices adapted by offering virtual volunteer opportunities, while others asked volunteers to perform hands-off ..read more

By Ben Marcantonio, NHPCO COO and Interim CEO February 18, 2024 marks one year since President Jimmy Carter began receiving hospice care at home and generously shared that information with the American public. In that year, President Carter and his family have continued to share pieces of their experience with us, helping to shape the public’s understanding of what hospice care can offer patients and families. They have brought hospice care into the public eye and into our national conversation to a degree that rarely happens.     The Carters spearheading this change in aw ..read more

The year is coming to a close and it’s been a busy one for NHPCO staff and members across the nation. While the NHPCO team is proud of the 2023 accomplishments outlined below, we didn’t achieve them on our own. Our work is made possible by our members, through support in the form of belonging to NHPCO, direct service on NHPCO committees, councils, and boards, and via ongoing feedback and participation in our various requests for input, networking calls, office hours, and online courses. While there is far more to reflect on than can be captured in a short blog post, here are twelve standout ac ..read more

A personal mediation on the role of hospice care in a daughter’s grief By Elyssa Katz, NHPCO Marketing and Communications Specialist December 2013 I sat on the footstool. It was nestled so close to the reclining chair that my knees were pushing into the soft, black leather, forcing a dent. Both of my hands cupped his. I was on his right side and had pulled his left arm over his body to feel both of his hands at once. Every few minutes I would interlace my fingers between his and squeeze my fingertips against the back of his hand, but most of the time, his were just resting in mine. I was perch ..read more

The following guest post is adopted from the blog of CareXM, NHPCO Strategic Partner.  Providing exceptional care to patients while improving the clinician experience can be challenging. Goshen Health, a 3,000-employee Magnet Hospital, proved that through effective experience management, hospice programs can not only survive but even thrive during intensive situations. Before the emergence of the COVID pandemic, Goshen Health recognized the importance of leveraging technology, restructuring processes, and focusing on its people. This approach successfully saw them through this chaotic per ..read more

By Ben Marcantonio, NHPCO COO and Interim CEO  Former President Jimmy Carter and his family are showing us what it means to live fully and meaningfully at the end of life. For more than nine months, the family has generously shared parts of their experience with us, the American public, and by doing so have painted a new picture of hospice care for millions of Americans. The photos and videos from the Rosalynn Carter memorial celebrations last week are the latest, and perhaps the most potent, examples of the Carters helping to reframe how people think about the end of life. Many people th ..read more

The following guest post is adopted from the blog of Acclivity Health Solutions, NHPCO Strategic Partner.  Written by: Robin Stawasz, Program Development Executive  When is palliative care not palliative care? How vital is nomenclature? As the healthcare continuum and payment reform evolves, palliative care providers must re-evaluate what constitutes the essence of palliative care and how the care model can best adapt. Without a federal benefit currently defining palliative care, as it does for hospice, there is great variation in care models which causes many disadvantages. However ..read more

The following guest post from Enclara Pharmacia is adapted from their recent ebook, Cultivating Care: Prioritizing Hospice Nurse Learning and Development, which is available as a free download on the Enclara website.  Two of the top priorities for hospice providers today are improving nurse retention and advancing health equity. While these are both complicated issues that call for a variety of interventions, there is at least one area where they intersect: interpersonal communication. Perhaps because nursing is a “caring profession,” we tend to assume interpersonal communication comes na ..read more

Janice Mitchell, Communications Specialist at Axxess Hospice leaders are responsible for the health and well-being of both their patients and their organization. From a financial perspective, this includes minimizing risk by managing spending and the hospice cap. Defining the Hospice Cap The cap is designed to ensure that hospice care does not exceed the cost of conventional medical care at the end of life. The allowable amounts are limited by two things: an annual limit per beneficiary and the number of beneficiaries served. Any amount paid to a hospice for its claims that exceeds the cap is ..read more

  By Ben Marcantonio COO and interim CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) The Fourth of July is a time to celebrate the United States’ independence, but it is also an opportunity to reflect on our nation’s founding principles, and how we can live by those ideals today and into the future. The Declaration of Independence tells us: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The first senten ..read more