The Alliance responds to CMS’s announcement of nationwide enrollment moratoria on hospice and home health providers  
National Alliance for Care at Home | The Alliance; Press Release; 5/13/26 
On May 13, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a six-month national moratorium on hospice and home health enrollment in response to program integrity concerns within the Medicare programs. While the National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) strongly supports efforts to root out bad actors who exploit these essential programs, undermine confidence in care at home, and threaten the patients and families who depend on it, the Alliance has long advocated for targeted strategies that distinguish between high-fraud markets and communities where fraud is not an identified problem and patients already face shortages of providers. 

Clinician grief is a hidden crisis in modern hospice care 
MedPage Today's KevinMD.com; by Linda Ellington, RN; 5/12/26 
I stood knocking at the door of my hospice patient like I did every Monday for the past eight months. A musically talented man in his early 40s was always waiting for my weekly nursing visit, more so for the aspect of socialization. He was diagnosed with colon cancer two years prior and had a colostomy bag, leaving this once vibrant, social, even handsome man a shell of what he once was. He became introverted and allowed only one friend to check on him occasionally. He had no family and only one estranged child who lived in another country. There was no answer at the door ...

Baylor students learn care as healing in hospice class 
Waco Tribune-Herald, Waco, TX; by Carl Hoover; 5/12/26 
A spring class for Baylor University medical humanities students put them in contact with something that medical training often skirts around: people who are dying and beyond what medicine can heal. The class, a partnership between Baylor and Providence Hospice, exposes students to the dynamics of hospice care through weekly contact with hospice patients, shadowing the routines of social workers, hospice workers and chaplains, plus and regular group discussions with classmates on their experiences. The hospice class was the brainchild of former Baylor medical humanities professor Bill Hoy, who started the class in 2020, recalled Sonya Wilson. Wilson, the volunteer coordinator for Providence Hospice, continues to teach the hospice class in collaboration with Baylor post-doctorate teaching fellow Levi Durham. [Full access may be limited by a paywall.]
Editor's Note: Recent newsletter posts about Dr. Bill Hoy include "Bridging the differences in care for grieving people: Worden’s differentiation between grief counseling and grief therapy" and "Not everything that can be counted ..."

Revisiting stories about mothers
Hospice & Palliative Care Today; compilation by Joy Berger, Editor in Chief; 5/6/26
Some relationships nurture. Some ache. Most carry both. As we move into Mother’s Day weekend, we revisit memorable stories from our newsletter about mothers and the many relationships surrounding them. Some are rooted in unconditional love, some are fractured, and many live in the quiet nuances in between.
May these stories serve as gentle catalysts for reflection on your own relationships with the women in your lives — mothers, grandmothers, wives, daughters, aunts, sisters, in-laws, “steps,” chosen family, and more.

• Metro East hospice aide caring for her own son with rare terminal disorder
• Facing loss & cancer: A daughter’s dual grief
• Is hospice over-sedating my mom?
• South Bay family mistakenly told 92-year-old relative had died at healthcare facility
• 'I want to carry on mum's legacy after her death'
• Netflix: Goodbye June
• Girl, 6, spends pocket money on gifts for hospice
• Hospice created Christmas for patient in November
• Daughters of Marshall: 4th-generation graduate credits family's perseverance for her success

While these stories only scratch the surface, we hope they connect with meaningful places in your own life and relationships. Shared with gratitude for my mom, Jane. — Joy

DOJ doubles down on healthcare fraud enforcement with new West Coast strike force 
MedCity News; by Katie Adams; 5/10/26 
... The DOJ rolled out a strike force targeting healthcare fraud in Arizona, Nevada and Northern California. The new strike force — which the DOJ is calling its “West Coast” healthcare fraud strike force — comes seven months after the department launched a similar strike force going after healthcare fraud in Massachusetts. Florida is not on this list yet, even though it has a reputation for healthcare fraud, but it might be next. 

BREAKING NEWS: CMS announces aggressive nationwide crackdown on fraud with six-month hospice and home health agency enrollment moratoria 
CMS Newsroom; Press Release; 5/13/26 

In coordination with Vice President JD Vance’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is taking decisive action to protect Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayer dollars through implementation of a six-month, nationwide data-driven moratoria on new Medicare enrollment for hospices and home health agencies (HHAs). The moratoria will allow CMS to temporarily halt the influx of new providers into these high-risk categories—a key source of fraudulent activity. Today’s move continues the Trump Administration’s crackdown on fraud, waste, and abuse in the Medicare program by stopping improper billing and preventing bad actors from entering the system.

Editor's Note: Responses from the National Alliance for Care at Home and from the National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation

• The Alliance responds to CMS’s announcement of nationwide enrollment moratoria on hospice and home health providers  
  National Alliance for Care at Home | The Alliance; Press Release; 5/13/26 
  
  
• NPHI Commends CMS Action to Implement Temporary Nationwide Hospice Moratorium to Strengthen Hospice Program Integrity 
  National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation | NPHI; Press Release; 5/13/26

Executive Personnel Changes - 5/8/26

• Andy Duncan--former Senior Director, Membership for NHPCO--recently joined LeadingAge as Senior Director, Association Data Strategy and Systems. In this newly created role, Andy will focus on AMS governance and operations, build out a data clearinghouse, guide the analytics and data governance infrastructure to help LeadingAge and its state affiliates make better use of their data.

• TheAmerican Geriatrics Society (AGS) announced that Debra Saliba, MD, MPH, AGSF and Alex Smith, MD, MS, MPH will succeed Joseph G. Ouslander, MD, AGSF as editors-in-chief of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS) beginning in July 2026. 

• Caroling Caring announces Daniel Gilland, BSBA, PHR, sHRBP has been named Vice President of Human Resources
  
  
• The CSU Shiley Haynes Institute for Palliative Care is proud to announce the appointment of Jessica Empeño, MSW, as its new Executive director.
  
  
• Liberty  Partners Group, a leading provider of strategic government relations and public affairs counsel, is proud to announce that Bill Dombi, a nationally recognized expert and leader in home care and hospice, has joined the Liberty Partners team, effective April 29, 2026, and will be serving the firm as a Principal.

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Psychological intervention aimed at depression, anxiety, and advance care planning in people with advanced cancer
CU Anschutz press release; by Greg Glasgow; 4/15/26
People with advanced or incurable cancer, understandably, often experience heightened levels of anxiety and depression, as well as an inability to undertake advance care planning — discussing and deciding on future medical care preferences in the event that a patient is no longer able to speak for themself. “Advance care planning involves deciding who would be making those decisions, how much flexibility that person would have in making them, and what types of decisions you would prefer that person make,” says University of Colorado Anschutz Cancer Center member Joanna Arch, PhD. “Physicians care about advance care planning because patients can get very sick and enter the ICU, and if they haven't communicated what they want, it can create a lot of difficulties for the family and the clinicians.” Arch and fellow cancer center member Jean Kutner, MD, MSPH, along with Regina Fink, PhD, professor emeriti of internal medicine, developed an intervention to help patients with advanced cancer cope with anxiety, depression, and advance care planning. 

Nursing home ratings and characteristics predict hospice use among decedents with serious illnesses
Journal of the American Medical Directors Association; by Ellis C Dillon, Chae Man Lee, Wenqi Gan, Doreek Charles, Germine Soliman, Julie Robison; 4/26
Approximately one-third of older Americans experience a nursing home (NH) stay within 3 months of death, but it is unclear how NH characteristics influence end-of-life care.  Short-term (vs long-term) NH stays were associated with increased odds of hospice use and short hospice use. Individuals with long-term stays had lower odds of hospice use with stays at NHs with the highest (vs lowest) CMS ratings for quality measures and staffing ... Those with short-term stays had lower odds of hospice use with stays at NHs with the highest CMS Health Inspection ratings. People with long-term stays at NHs that were part of a chain, had Alzheimer's care units, or had more beds had increased odds of hospice care. Conclusions and implications: Among Connecticut Medicaid-insured decedents with NH stays, people with long-term stays and stays in NHs with better CMS ratings had lower odds of hospice use. 
Assistant Editor's note: It is difficult to obtain national data for Medicaid hospice days. But according to Medicare claims data obtained from Hospice Analytics, 19% of hospice days in 2024 occurred in a nursing home setting. This summary article highlights an important issue and an excellent opportunity for future analysis with a broader study population. Intuitively, we'd like to see highly rated NHs have higher hospice utilization. 

End-of-life care behind bars: A periodic literature search - May 2026
Current Thinking; by Barry R. Ashpole; 5/6/26
The current issue includes:

• The aging female prison population
• The high costs of incarcerating senior citizens in women’s prisons
• Compassionate leave for elderly, female prison inmates
• How prisons are failing women with cancer
• The few peer-to-peer programs for incarcerated women

Key impacts of the 2026 National AI Legislative Framework on Healthcare
Arnall Golden Gregory blog; by Charmaine Mech Aguirre; 4/22/26
On March 20, 2026, the White House published the national AI legislative framework, outlining the administration’s preferred blueprint for federal AI legislation. One of the framework’s most consequential themes is its explicit rejection of the current and rapidly expanding “patchwork of conflicting state laws” governing AI as contrary to innovation. Instead, the framework calls for a consistent national policy. The framework adopts an innovation‑forward posture, though it contemplates baseline guardrails for certain higher‑risk AI endeavors. The framework focuses on seven core pillars... [click here for more] Key Takeaways:

1. The 2026 national artificial intelligence (“AI”) legislative framework indicates a move toward federal AI legislation and potential preemption of state laws, creating a more uniform and strict compliance environment for healthcare and digital health companies.
2. The framework prioritizes innovation alongside safeguards for vulnerable populations, placing heightened scrutiny on healthcare AI tools, especially those involving clinical decision-making, patient interaction, and minors.
3. Providers and technology companies should implement mature AI governance now, including inventorying AI assets, tightening oversight, and documenting bias‑mitigation efforts, to meet future federal requirements and enforcement expectations.

Poking at a campfire with a stick is one of life's greatest satisfactions. ~Pat McManus