Empassion CEO: MA Can Help with Hospice Program Integrity
Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 10/13/26
Structures like Medicare Advantage (MA) can help improve hospice program integrity and reduce the health care spend, according to Robin Heffernan, CEO of Empassion Health. Empassion Health operates in 45 states... Hospice News sat down with Heffernan to discuss past program integrity issues within the home health benefit, how MA may have helped and what this means for hospices.

LifeTouch Health data breach exposes Social Security numbers and health records
Data Breach Rights; 10/13/26
Arkansas Hospice Inc., operating as LifeTouch Health, notified the Vermont Attorney General in October 2026 of a data breach exposing Social Security numbers, government ID numbers, financial account data, and health records. The number of people affected has not been publicly disclosed. Affected individuals should place a credit freeze and monitor both credit reports and insurance statements closely.

AI prescriptions are being tested in Utah
HealthcareBrew; by Caroline Catherman; 10/9/26
Healthcare startup Nolla Health on Oct. 5 began piloting topical acne prescriptions for Utah adults, written up by AI instead of doctors. The company says it is the “first organization in the US authorized by a state regulator for AI to issue an initial prescription, not just a refill.” To start, physicians are reviewing all the AI prescriptions. Eventually, assuming the program meets pre-agreed safety targets and the state signs off, the goal is for physicians to review prescriptions in only a handful of cases, per the company’s Oct. 5 announcement.

Mom, 42, gets married in hospice wedding one week after she was admitted for heart failure
People [UK]; by Desiree Anello; 10/12/26
“It’s unfortunate that we are marrying in these circumstances, but at the same time, we just knew it was the right thing for us,” the bride said. A 42-year-old woman, Katerina Lavuova, married her longtime partner, Stanley Srvcek, in a hospice wedding one week after she was admitted for heart failure. "I have learned that people don't just come here to die, they can come here to have happiness," she said.

Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy to headline End Well 2026 Summit, taking on loneliness at the end of life
PR Newswire; 10/13/26
End Well... today announced that Dr. Vivek Murthy, the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States and founder of The Together Project, will headline its 2026 Summit on November 12 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and online. Murthy will speak with Jamie Yuccas, CBS News National Correspondent, about loneliness and human connection when people are facing serious illness, caregiving, dying, and grief.

I’ve mentored people for 20 years. I use these 4 steps to help them advance.
Entrepreneur; by Jissan Cherian; 10/9/26
The best mentors treat every conversation as a two-way exchange, asking questions that sharpen the other person’s thinking while staying open to having their own views challenged. A four-step process of building self-awareness, gathering feedback from five people, separating perception from reality and refining your defining stories creates growth for both mentor and mentee.

SOS: What happens to the SSVI calculation when one in six hospices is removed?
Substack; by Joan Teno; 8/31/26
Tweet from Kimberly Brandt, Deputy Director of CMS “Deputy CMS Administrator Kimberly Brandt with a major update on the hospice fraud crackdown in California … 1,076 hospices have been removed from the Medicare program in California alone... these are hospices that are no longer under review. They’re not on a watch list. They are GONE; thrown out of the program entirely—unable to bill Medicare, unable to touch another taxpayer dollar, unable to take advantage of another vulnerable beneficiary.” Think about this: one in six hospices may be removed from the Medicare program. How will that affect the proposed SSVI cutpoints?

Millions of Americans will have fewer options during Medicare open enrollment this year
Morningstar; by Jessica Hall; 10/9/26
There will be no Medicare Advantage plans in 181 counties in 2027, up from 67 in 2026. Medicare Advantage controls more than half of the overall Medicare market of about 69.6 million subscribers. Millions of older adults will need to find new healthcare coverage for 2027 after several insurers exited markets and cut back on their offerings to protect profit margins.

Changes in US life expectancy From 2019 to 2024
JAMA Internal Medicine; by Deborah Dowell, Fang Xu, Xinyi Jiang, Gery Guy, Nisha Nataraj, Jean Ko, Grant Baldwin; 10/12/26
From 2019 to 2024, there was no overall increasing or decreasing trend in rates for total deaths, poisoning deaths, or leading causes of death, with the exceptions of chronic lower respiratory disease and cancer and COVID-19. Overall life expectancy at birth increased by 0.123 year from 2019 to 2024.

Commure and Compassus bring AI-powered referral automation to home-based care
GlobeNewswire; 10/13/26
Commure, the AI-native enterprise healthcare platform, today announced a strategic partnership with Compassus, a leading national provider of integrated home-based care services, including home health, palliative care, home infusion and hospice services. Together, Commure and Compassus co-developed Commure Orchestrator, an AI-powered automation platform built through close collaboration between the two organizations.

Hospitals are seeing slim margins in 2026
Chief Healthcare Executive; by Ron Southwick; 10/12/26
A new Strata Decision Technology report examining hospitals in the first half of 2026 illustrates the subdued performance for many hospitals. At the start of the year, median hospital operating margins were in negative territory (-0.6% in January and -0.3% in February). Hospital operating margins have moved into positive territory as the year has progressed, but the numbers are hardly lofty, with median operating margins reaching 0.7% by June. This comes after a solid second half of 2025, when hospital operating margins ranged between 1% and 1.5%.

Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree wtih you without fear of retaliation. ~Doris Kearns Goodwin