CommonSpirit Health at Home’s ‘aggressive’ hospice growth strategy for 2026 and beyond 
Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 2/10/26 
Continuing its de novo- and joint venture-based blueprint for growth, home health and hospice provider CommonSpirit Health at Home is also setting plans in motion to engage patients further upstream for earlier hospice enrollment, when appropriate. CommonSpirit Health at Home is the home-based care arm of the nonprofit health system CommonSpirit Health, which operates more than 2,200 care sites across 24 states. Hospice News caught up with CommonSpirit Health at Home CEO Trisha Crissman at the Home Care 100 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona to discuss CommonSpirit Health at Home’s strategic plans for 2026, as well as the top trends and market forces shaping the hospice community.

Social Media Watch 2/6/26

• Dr. Oz, Administrator CMS, provides a California Fraud Update on X - three items, including hospice. [Dr. Oz references the 2022 California Hospice Licensure and Oversight report. Also see Gov. Newsom's press release, In the four years since Governor Newsom’s new hospice provider ban took effect, California has revoked more than 280 licenses.]
• Ernesto Lopez, CEO 1520ai, comments on an article by Roseanne Berry - Understanding eligibility and documentation.
• Don Sullivan reposted Shelli Feder's comments regarding tracking state-level palliative care policy per [Yale's] Solomon Center’s groundbreaking palliative care law and policy initiative drives nationwide reforms.

Elara Caring secures new strategic investment from Ares and DaVita 
Elara Caring News; Press Release; 2/2/26 
Elara Caring (Elara) ... today announced that it has entered into an agreement for a strategic investment from Ares’ Private Equity Group (Ares) and DaVita. The investment is intended to expand access to personalized, clinically advanced care at home for patients with complex and acute needs. Elara will continue to operate as a wholly independent company led by CEO Ananth Mohan and the current management team. 

Hospice doctor shares what happens in the moments immediately after death 
Good; by Adam Albright Hanna; 2/3/26 
Throughout human history, one question has bewildered every civilization, society, and individual. What happens after we die? For some people, it is a question for science. For others, it is a question of faith. But for Dr. B.J. Miller, it is a question that he is totally fine not knowing the answer to. Miller is a hospice and palliative care physician at the University of California, San Francisco. He is one of the world's leading voices on dignified death, and for him, the end of life is actually about the living. ... "I’ve been around people who are just about to die," Miller said. "Bodies that have just died. And there is this lingering sense, it’s true. There’s a feeling. It’s a palpable... yeah, there’s a lingering." ... "I didn’t need to have control over everything, I didn’t need to know the answers anymore. I mean, I love not knowing. The answer’s unimportant. It’s just a sacred and gorgeous moment."
Editor's Note: Having served in direct hospice patient care from 1993–2002, I was present with many persons during their active dying and in the moments just after death, including attending deaths as a chaplain. Over time—and especially through the intimate experience of my parents’ deaths—that sense of sacredness Dr. Miller describes remains real for me. So I find myself wondering and asking non-clinical leaders: when you look at Average Daily Census (ADC), Length of Stay (LOS), and other familiar metrics, what do you see? Numbers on a spreadsheet? Or living measures of something immeasurably human—something that truly matters?

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What hospice leaders need to know about H.R.7148 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress | signed by the President, 2/3/26
Congress.gov; content below gleaned for hospice leaders by Judi Lund Person, Guest Editor

• Section 6207: Extension of funding for Medicare Hospice Surveys. An addition $4,400,00 included in budget, beginning January 31, 2026 and end on December 31, 2026 to remain available until expended.
• Section 6209: Extension of Certain Telehealth Flexibilities. Ending on December 31, 2027. Exceptions include if individual is located in an area subject to a moratorium, if individual is receiving hospice care from a provider subject to enhanced oversight, or encounter performed by a hospice physician or nurse practitioner who is not enrolled in PECOS or validly opted out. 
• In addition, the law now requires the hospice provider to use a modifier on the hospice claim for F2F encounters occurring on or after January 1, 2027 if the encounter was conducted via telehealth. [NOTE: CMS will develop the modifier code to be used.]
• Section 6218: Extension of Adjustment to Calculation of Hospice Cap Amount Under Medicare. The aggregate cap calculation [using the percent increase of the rate to adjust the cap] will continue to be used until 2035.

Woman who allegedly stole $3.2m from Medicare boasted about lavish home 
Complex; by Helen Storms; 2/7/26 
A California woman has been arrested after allegedly stealing $3.2 million from Medicare as part of an elaborate hospice scam. The woman, identified as 49-year-old Flor Mora, shared photos of the lavish $4 million dream home she bought from the funds she is accused of stealing before being hit with felony charges. Mora purchased the luxurious seaside home located in the Carmel Highlands in Monterey County, California, in November 2025. It would later be featured in the Washington Street Journal and even voted the House of the Year. Little did voters know that Mora had paid for the early 20th-century style home with reportedly stolen funds.
Editor's Note: For more, visit our post yesterday, "California AG Bonta charges 7 in Monterey County over hospice fraud scheme totaling $3.2m."

[Canada] The quiet web of care: Hospitals, hospice, paramedics and community working as one 
The Millstone; Mississippi Mills area, Canada; 1/25/26 
When we think about care, most of us picture the hospital: rooms, nurses, doctors, the moment a life changes. But real care in North Lanark is not anchored to a single building. It’s a living web the Mississippi River Health Alliance — Almonte General Hospital, Carleton Place & District Memorial Hospital, Fairview Manor, and Lanark County Paramedic Service — working alongside Home Hospice North Lanark and Houle Healthcare so neighbors can get the right help at the right time, in the place that matters most. ... They are parts of the same journey, passing the baton back and forth so patients, families and neighbors are not left to navigate alone.
Editor's Note: Pair this with today's post, "Why patient flow will decide hospital performance in 2026."

What Salem-area lawmakers are prioritizing for the 2026 session 
Salem Reporter, Salem, OR; by Rachel Alexander and Hailey Cook; 2/4/26 
... Oregon’s month-long legislative session got underway on Monday, Feb.2. The fast-paced short session occurs in even years. ... Hospice care oversight: SB 1575 would add protections for patients in hospice care. The new rules would include requiring a background check for business owners, ensuring agencies have the financial resources to care for patients and pausing the issuance of new hospice licenses until the state rules are implemented.  Patterson said the change was at the request of the Oregon Hospice and Palliative Care Association. “In other states there has been a lot of fraud and abuse, and we want to prevent that from happening here in Oregon,” she said. 

Longmont restaurant owner hits the road to make hospital patient's wish come true 
NBC 9 News, Longmont, CO; by Colton Chavez; 2/6/26 
A Longmont restaurant owner is driving to Montana this weekend to personally deliver baked potatoes to a patient who listed visiting his establishment as one of their wishes. Eddy Ellson, owner of Big Bear Baked Potatoes, received a message through his restaurant's website from a hospice nurse in Montana asking if he could share his recipe or send food to a patient named Kristle, who wanted to visit his restaurant but was too ill to make the trip. "One of her last wishes she asked the nurse to take her to Denver because she wanted to go to Big Bear Baked Potatoes," Ellson said. Instead of sending a recipe, Ellson decided to make the journey himself. He plans to cook for Kristle, her family, and her nurses on Super Bowl Sunday, when his restaurant is normally closed.

Senior Nannies Home Care Services joins forces with Choice Health at Home 
Desert Sun, EIN Presswire, Tyler, TX; Press Release; 1/30/26 
Senior Nannies Home Care Services and Senior Advantages Assisted Living Placement Services (“Senior Nannies”), ... is proud to announce it has joined forces with Choice Health at Home (“Choice”), a leading multi-state operator of home health, hospice, personal care, rehabilitation, and specialty in-home services. The transaction marks Choice’s entry into the Southeastern United States, establishing Florida as a strategic anchor and creating a scaled, integrated personal care platform to support a broader regional expansion.

Medicare hospice use patterns among patients with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias compared to those with other terminal diagnoses (Issue Brief)
ASPE; Frank, J., Huessard, K., Broyles, I., Frazier, L., Oliveira, I., Haltermann, W., III, Lamont, H., Okafor, M., & Blanco, M.; 9/25
Key Points:

• People living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) have unpredictable disease trajectories that raise unique challenges for end-of-life care planning and may contribute to disparities in hospice care. This study investigated whether length of stay (LOS), visit frequency, and live discharge (LD) rates differed for Medicare hospice enrollees with ADRD compared to Medicare hospice enrollees with other common terminal diagnoses (e.g., cancer). This study also investigated whether hospice agency characteristics were associated with differences in these care patterns.
• Frequency of visits from each hospice staff discipline varied by patient diagnosis, with ADRD patients receiving fewer average daily hospice visits than patients with other primary diagnoses. Patients with a secondary diagnosis of ADRD also tended to receive fewer hospice visits than patients with no primary or secondary ADRD diagnosis.
• Patients with ADRD had longer lengths of stay in hospice, spent a larger portion of their hospice stay receiving routine home care (RHC), and had the second highest rate of LD compared to patients with other primary diagnoses.
• Hospice characteristics, including ownership type, size, age, location, and proportion of patients with ADRD, were associated with differences in hospice care patterns including LOS, RHC days, and frequency of hospice visits.

Medical Aid in Dying and our ethical duties—Call to action
JAMA Health Forum; by Yesne Alici, Liz Blackler, Julia Danielle Kulikowski, Amy Scharf; 1/26
Medical aid in dying (MAID) is legal in 11 US states and Washington, DC, and is being actively considered in 18 additional states ... In all jurisdictions where MAID is legal, hospital systems have the option to opt out of providing MAID services but are legally obligated to share information about where patients can access resources. We maintain that all hospital systems and individual clinicians have an ethical responsibility to go beyond simply sharing information. Patients are going to ask about MAID, and institutions are ethically obligated to establish comprehensive policies that empower and encourage their clinical staffs—primarily physicians but also nurses and advanced practice clinicians—to purposefully and thoughtfully respond. Here, we describe the experience of our institution, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), in developing policies and procedures to fulfill this responsibility and highlight lessons for other health care organizations and oncology practices seeking to accomplish similar goals.

Be gentle with the grieving hearts, they are walking two roads at once. One with the living and one with the gone. ~ Ulle Kaye