Marketer Abraham Shin named in federal hospice fraud indictment 
Before It's News, Washington, DC; 8/18/26 
Federal prosecutors have identified marketer Abraham Shin as an alleged operational link inside a Southern California hospice network, accusing him of connecting Medicare beneficiaries, sensitive personal information, paid referrals, and four providers that collectively submitted approximately $27,731,000 in disputed claims. Shin, 66, of Corona, California, is charged alongside hospice operator Oren David Shachar and mortuary employee Jeannie Choi in a 16-count indictment alleging healthcare fraud, aggravated identity theft, kickbacks, and a coordinated effort involving both living beneficiaries and people who had already died. The government alleges that Shin entered the wider operation no later than March 2025, more than four years after prosecutors say Shachar began the charged scheme, making his alleged conduct narrower in duration but central to several of its most serious later transactions.

Nearly one in five Medicare hospice patients now leaves the program alive rather than through death 
Medical Daily; by Dorothy Brooks; 8/17/26 
Almost one in five people who leave Medicare hospice care each year leaves alive rather than through death, and the share has climbed every year since 2021. Federal data released this spring put the live discharge rate at 19.1 percent in fiscal year 2025, up from 16.9 percent four years earlier. For families, this is the rule almost nobody explains at enrollment. Hospice is not a permanent placement. It is a benefit tied to a prognosis, and when that prognosis changes, the benefit can end while the patient is still living, still ill, and still needing care. Understanding it before it happens is the difference between a planned transition and a phone call that lands like an eviction.

Compassus CMO: deliver on the hospice promise 
Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 8/18/26 
A patient’s journey towards hospice often begins with a goals-of-care conversation, but those discussions must be timely and effective to truly guide the services a person receives at the end of life. Hospice News spoke with Dr. Kurt Merkelz, M.D., FAAHPM, chief medical officer for Compassus, about the value of these conversations, when they should happen and how clinicians should conduct them. Compassus, one of the nation’s largest hospice providers, is a portfolio company of the private equity firm Towerbrook Capital Partners and the health system Ascension Health.

‘Light Up a Life’: Rice County approves courthouse trees for Faribault Area Hospice initiative 
LeSeur County News, Faribault. MN; by Lauren Viska; 8/19/26 
For 40 years, Faribault Area Hospice has turned the glow of hundreds of white lights into a celebration of lives well lived. Each light on its traditional “Light Up a Life” tree represents a person remembered, honored and celebrated by those who loved them. Since 1985, Faribault Area Hospice has placed thousands of white lights on a memory tree, with individuals sponsoring a light in memory of someone special. Proceeds from the lights go directly toward helping hospice patients in the Faribault area who are experiencing financial hardship. ... Now, after more than four decades of the tradition, Hospice is looking to bring that familiar glow to a new set of evergreens.

If you lost a spouse/domestic partner in recent weeks read this today 
AfterTalk; by Larry Lynn; 8/17/26 
I remember when I lost my first wife 30+ years ago, and recall how unprepared I was to deal with financial issues in the moment. I made mistakes that cost me later, so let me keep this simple. ... 

• Immediate Steps After a Family Member’s Death
• Obtain Death Certificates ...
• Locate Important Documents ...
• Notify Relevant Parties
• Contact Financial Institutions ...
• Inform Government Agencies ...
• Review and Manage Accounts
• Update Financial Accounts ...
• Handle Ongoing Financial Obligations ...
• Additional Considerations ...
• Executor Responsibilities ...
• Emotional Support ...

Editor's Note: Do you provide a similar list for the bereaved caregivers you serve? Ask anyone who has been responsible for these tasks what it was like to tend these, when so overwhelmed with the loss, grief and paired with so many other immediate events and dynamics of family, friends, funerals, and more. What can you provide, with sensitive supportive empowerment for those reeling from the dying and death of their loved one?

Honoring my daughter's final wishes 
Substack; by Larry Lehmer; 8/7/26 
I own one pink shirt. I wear it once a year, on Feb. 28, my daughter’s birthday. It’s mostly her idea. “Please wear more pink!” she wrote for her husband, Paul, to read at her celebration of life. “To the men — you can pull it off.” 
It’s been three years since Paul had to deliver Meghan’s final words, at the Des Moines Botanical Garden, the same place where they began their married life 13 years earlier. “I once read ‘Love doesn’t die, people do’,” Meghan wrote. “So when love is all that’s left of me, give me away.” 
Meghan died on Aug. 8, 2023. It still hurts, of course, but we continue to celebrate her life, her devotion to family and try to honor her dying wish “that we all help each other a little more.” 
Here’s what I wrote about her in August 2023: ...

Hospice Wage Index, the Final Rule, and the signals CMS is sending | part one 
Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); pocast hosted by Chris Comeaux with Annette Kiser and Judi Lund Person 
The 2027 Hospice Final Rule is more than a reimbursement update—it’s a window into where Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) believes hospice care needs to go next. In Part One, host Chris Comeaux sits down with hospice regulatory experts Annette Kiser and Judi Lund Person to look beyond the numbers and “read the tea leaves” in CMS’s latest rule.  They unpack what hospice leaders need to understand about the Hospice Election Statement Addendum, the growing scrutiny of unrelated services and non-hospice Medicare spending, telehealth reporting, and the Service and Spending Variation Index (SSVI).  As Judi explains, CMS’s commentary and responses to industry feedback can reveal as much about the agency’s direction as the regulations themselves.

New York's Medical Aid in Dying Act takes effect: what clients and providers need to know 
JDSupra; by Dana Walsh Sivak; 8/18/26 
... Provider Obligations and Protections

• Providers who object to facilitating this process may not be forced to do so under this law. No physician, health care professional, or religiously-affiliated facility is required to participate in medical aid in dying. Religiously-oriented home hospice providers may opt out of offering the service directly – but they may not prevent a patient receiving hospice care in their own home from accessing it independently.
• There are legal protections for providers who do assist their patients in accessing medical aid in dying. Providers who comply in good faith with the statute's requirements receive civil and criminal immunity, while any violation constitutes professional misconduct under the New York Education Law, and anyone who attempts to coerce a patient faces criminal prosecution.

Chapters Health System announces joint venture with Preferred Care 
The Best Times, Temple Terrace, FL; Press Release; 8/19/26 
Chapters Health System announced today the launch of a new joint venture with Preferred Care, a home health agency in Florida, to expand hospice care in Southwest Florida. The partnership creates a new offering through Preferred Care Hospice, which was granted approval through the certificate of need program to offer vital hospice services in Collier County. "The opportunity to work with Preferred Care to help expand hospice services in Florida is the chance to align with an organization that has the same legacy of quality and exceptional service that is deeply rooted in Chapters Health System," said Andrew Molosky, President and CEO, Chapters Health System. 

Dozens of senior living and care-related firms on Inc. list of fastest-growing private companies
McKnights Senior Living; by Kathleen Stee;e Gaivin; 8/18/26 
Dozens of senior living and care-related companies are featured on the 2026 Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. Companies on the list are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from from 2022 to 2025. Median growth for the 5,000 named companies was 130%  last year. ... The highest-ranked home health or home care company was Home Care Placement, listed at No. 73. Other home care companies in the top 100 were CareChoice (No. 89), Complete Care Management Services (No. 95) and Healthview Home Care Services (No. 97). Other home health or home care providers among the top 1,000 companies on the list: ...

What end-of-life experts know about living well: love your wrinkles, celebrate birthdays and don’t obsess over work 
The Guardian; by Sarah Phillips; 8/13/26 
We will all face death one day, but our attitude towards this is individual. How can our understanding of mortality shape our approach to life? Here, palliative care doctors and death doulas share what they know about the end – and how it informs the way they live. Prioritize people, not things Dr. Rachel Clarke is a palliative care doctor who works at an NHS hospital in Oxfordshire [England] and is the author of several books, including The Story of a Heart. “I have learned what matters to my patients as they approach the end of their life,” says Clarke. “All the irrelevant stuff is stripped away. No one cares about how much power they had, how big their house is, how fancy their car is, how much status they had at work. What they care about is the people they love.” In short: “The way to live a life that is rich and deeply fulfilling is to build human connections. That matters more than anything else.”

Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings. ~ William Arthur Ward