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President Obama's administration reversed its decision to revise a Medicare regulation to include paying physicians to discuss good advance care planning with patients. This decision is a setback from an ethical and health care perspective, according to advocates for end-of-life planning.
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Finding a way to serve hospice patients who are spread over a 10,000 square mile area is challenging, especially when some staff members are driving as much as 60 miles one way to reach a patient's home.
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Few nursing homes have a reliable process to help residents understand and document their end-of-life wishes, nor adequate procedures to care for them when they are dying. As a result, residents are often hospitalized during the last weeks or months of life, causing unnecessary suffering and possibly driving up health care costs.
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A majority of charities surveyed saw their fundraising revenue remain stable or increase last year, according to the 2010 Nonprofit Fundraising Survey, a report produced by the Nonprofit Research Collaborative (NRC), a coalition of six fundraising and philanthropic organizations.
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Hospitals might improve their ethics consultation processes if they design and use a brief ethics family assessment tool to determine families' and patients' values, two ethicists say.
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As a result of two cuts to Medicare reimbursement, the hospice industry will see the overall median Medicare profit margin drop from 2% in 2008 to -14% in 2019, according to a study recently released by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).
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In a report produced by The Moran Company for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in Alexandria, VA, data from the Hospice Cost reports and the Medicare Claims data were used to evaluate the impact of Medicare reimbursement cuts on the hospice industry.
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Clinicians rely upon family members or other surrogates to make health decisions, such as entering hospice care, when an adult patient is incapacitated. A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine evaluates the effect of this practice on the surrogates.
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Hospitals accredited by Joint Commission can now seek Advanced Certification in Palliative Care with the introduction of a new program. The certification program launches Sept. 1, 2011 and the standards will be available July 1, 2011.
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The Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) offers a new, free online webinar that examines the important role that volunteers play in hospice, and explores creative ways that hospices can recruit and retain volunteers.
