By Ana Sanchez, M.D., Community Hospice of Northeast Florida When it’s hard to breathe, it’s difficult to think of anything else. Floridians who live with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD, may know that all too well, especially this time…
COPD: Helping Our Elders Breathe Easier
It’s that time again! Time to select those outstanding hospice professionals you would like to see nominated for the “Awards of Excellence“. For those who might not know, these awards are a unique opportunity for outstanding individuals to get statewide recognition for…
Attendees at our 2015 clinical conference, “Painting the Picture: Messaging Metrics & Mission,” had a unique opportunity to witness artists such as poets, dancers, and painters perform their crafts during the “The Art of Grief” Live Art Showcase. One of…
By Avow It was a beautiful day in May when Jessica received the call informing her that her father had succumbed to a fatal heart attack. “Dad” was 77 and apparently suffering from undetected heart disease. The loss came as…
Courtesy of HPH Hospice Picture this: Your mother has broken her arm and it’s time to make her traditional pecan pie for the holidays. It’s easy to see that it would be difficult for her to make the pie this…
November is Hospice & Palliative Care Month (read Governor Scott’s proclamation) and a great time to learn more about the wonderful services hospice and palliative care provides patients and families. What is hospice and palliative care? Hospice and palliative care…
Medicare has announced significant changes in the hospice drug coverage rules, prompting cheers from many patient advocates within and beyond the hospice community. Many feared that the original changes would have had disastrous effects on quality of care by limiting…
By Wendy Melton Abbott, Team Leader, Big Bend Hospice As a hospice nurse, I often find that when families learn all that hospice care has to offer, they are both relieved and concerned: relieved that the comprehensive list of…
News
This year’s Forum was a great success! While we are preparing follow-up emails, evaluations, attendee lists, and CEU information to go out this week, don’t forget to mark your calendar for 2025:
Upcoming Events
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12:00 PM - Managing Patient Complaints
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12:00 PM - 2024 Hospice Clinical Management Series
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12:00 PM - Hospice QAPI: The Cornerstone of Compliance
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Complaints will arise, but is your team prepared to manage them? The patient rights requirements in the Conditions of Participation mandate that complaints be investigated, and complete documentation be maintained of the complaint, investigation, and resolution.
This webinar will review the CoP requirements for complaint management, including documentation from receipt of complaint to resolution and how to track and trend complaints to improve patient care. It will address how to develop a customer service program aimed at improving patient satisfaction and decreasing complaints from patients, staff members, and customers.
Face-to-face requirements, physician billing, and the aggregate cap self-reporting requirement are just a few of the daily reimbursement-related challenges covered in this webinar. Specific physician billing codes for palliative care will also be addressed to expand your agency's knowledge of palliative care reimbursement and the benefit for patients in the VBID Model. HIS transmission requirements and the increased penalty for noncompliance will also be covered, as will medical review denials and how PEPPER reports affect your hospice.
The HOPE tool was confirmed and adopted with the 2025 hospice final rule. It is imperative that hospices be prepared to accurately capture the patient-specific data to accurately complete the HOPE tool. This tool will replace the current HIS and will be completed at different timepoints. This session will address all required data points, the HOPE assessment timepoints, new outcome measures that will be calculated from the data, the impact on Hospice Quality Reporting Program compliance, and the detailed timeline for implementation.
The Bereavement Volunteer Training program is designed for volunteers who have completed an initial hospice volunteer training course. While volunteer managers are encouraged to attend this webinar, this is not a webinar on how to teach this course, but instead, this is the actual course that volunteers should attend.
Part 1 of this two-part series is designed to provide in-depth training for volunteers who wish to work in a bereavement program. It will cover techniques and interventions that are more advanced than those in typical, initial volunteer training courses.
Part 1 of this three-part webinar series will review regulations and compliance issues that are critical to hospice leadership. You’ll learn about Medicare hospice eligibility and how to successfully guide your team to support terminality and regulatory compliance. As Medicare oversight continues, it is critical that leadership understands the regulations and what qualifies patients for hospice and continued services.
This webinar will address the tools required to work with your team to meet those eligibility requirements and what to do when a patient is no longer eligible. In addition to the financial bottom line, leadership is accountable for patient care, agency quality, Hospice Compare scores, PEPPER scores, and a multitude of other reporting scores. Understanding the regulations and eligibility is crucial; Part 1 is a must-attend for all new leadership or those requiring a refresher.
The most recent numbers from NHPCO show that 24% of all hospice admissions are people with cancer and 24% are people with Alzheimer’s and other dementia-related disorders. The data also shows that the median length of stay has dropped to just 17 days. This means that care is more challenging and there is less time to accomplish important goals.
It’s also true that caregiver stress, burnout, and trauma have increased. It is more important than ever to refine your skill set to maneuver around all these challenges, which include denial as a coping strategy, learned helplessness, and avoidance related to culture and religious traditions. This webinar will address these topics and more to specifically guide caregivers through those important and meaningful conversations.
The Bereavement Volunteer Training program is designed for volunteers who have completed an initial hospice volunteer training course. Part 2 of this two-part series will address the role of the bereavement volunteer when thoughts of suicide are present and explain how to conduct screening and check-in calls. It will also explore volunteer-specific interventions when common complex situations occur in the bereavement setting, including the importance of setting and maintaining personal and professional boundaries.
Your QAPI program must be an agency-wide, data-driven, quality-assessment, and performance-improvement program. In this session you will learn:
-Keys to a quality improvement program
-Regulations you need to know to establish a QAPI program
-How Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) fits with QAPI
-How to utilize CASPER reports, analysis of high-risk/high-volume/problem-prone areas, the Hospice Care Index, and more to drive your QAPI program
-How to review project samples, audit tools, and indicators that will be provided
This webinar will address how assisted-living communities and healthcare organizations in general can better develop partnerships with hospice agencies to advance their mission and business objectives. You’ll learn an approach to providing a superior resident and family experience when receiving hospice services.
Innovative programming and services will be presented that will enhance service quality and strengthen communication between families, staff, and hospice caregivers. A successful partnership with hospice and assisted-living facilities will extend the care continuum.
How many times a week do you wrestle with difficult clinical issues that involve complex moral and ethical components with no clear-cut answers? How often do your colleagues struggle with moral distress over clinical decisions and resource allocations? How many times have you reread a clinical policy and recognized that there are ethical components that are inadequately addressed? A well-functioning bioethics committee can assist with all these issues and more!
Part 2 of this three-part webinar series will help new managers identify key areas of leadership focus and will cover the key elements of effectively managing a hospice team. Learn how the regulation defines team members, how to manage your team, what the expectations should be, qualifications, and competencies, both for orientation and annual skills training. Discover how to effectively run an IDT, how to prepare your team for an IDT, and how to prepare for recertifications to support terminality and hospice Medicare eligibility. In addition, this program will review the live discharge process and how to guide your team through the discharge process.
Part 2 is about leadership, administration, and how to guide your team with successful management of the patient plan of care through assessment, documentation, and the IDT process. New managers often lack the skillset to address issues of productivity, documentation timeliness, or quality of care so this is particularly critical for new hospice leaders as a guide through the regulations, hospice Medicare eligibility, and managing a team.
No leadership team can afford to overlook the public reporting and financial implications of their CAHPS Hospice Survey scores. This program will offer practical tips to boost your survey response rate and increase your scores. Join us to learn how to leverage these scores to elevate care quality and team performance - improved scores reflect excellent teamwork and should be a source of pride!
