Literature Review

Montgomery Hospice & Prince George’s Hospice hires new Chief Executive OfficerPress release; 5/21/24Montgomery Hospice & Prince George’s Hospice is pleased to announce the selection of Karen Brubaker Miller, MSW, as the organization’s next Chief Executive Officer. Brubaker Miller’s tenure will start on July 1, succeeding Ann Mitchell, MPH, who was at the organization for the past 26 years. A licensed clinical social worker, Mrs. Brubaker Miller is a business and strategic minded leader with over 25 years of leadership experience working in the non-profit and for-profit hospice industry.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. ~Nelson Mandela

Hospice Owner Sentenced to 240 Months Imprisonment and Ordered to Repay $42,000,000 for Defrauding MedicareDepartment of Justice; 5/16/24New Orleans - U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans announced that on May 15, 2024, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk sentenced SHIVA AKULA (“AKULA”), age 68, of New Orleans, to 240 months of imprisonment, three years of supervised release and $2,300 in mandatory special assessment fees, in relation to an extensive health care fraud scheme orchestrated by AKULA. In November 2023, a federal jury convicted AKULA of all 23 counts of his underlying indictment. AKULA owned and oversaw the day-to-day operations of Canon Healthcare, LLC, a hospice facility with offices in the New Orleans area, Baton Rouge, Covington, and Gulfport, Mississippi. At sentencing, the Court found that between January 2013 and December 2019, Canon billed Medicare approximately $84 million in fraudulent claims and was paid approximately $42 million relating to these fraudulent claims. The Court ordered that AKULA repay the $42 million of fraudulent proceeds back to Medicare.

Biden announces ‘major step’ toward reclassifying marijuanaThe Hill; by Joseph Choi; 5/16/24The Biden administration announced Thursday it had initiated the formal rulemaking process to reschedule marijuana to Schedule III from its Schedule I designation that it has held for more than 50 years. CBS website maps states where marijuana is legal for recreational and / or medical use.

Home care providers need to step up worker safety initiatives, experts sayMcKnight's Home Care; by Adam Healy; 5/14/24In the aftermath of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s citing of Elara Caring for failing to protect a worker killed on the job, safety and legal experts are urging providers to be proactive about implementing worker safety practices. “We have been seeing a rather significant uptick in workplace violence issues in the home-based care industry,” Angelo Spinola, an attorney at Polsinelli, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse, in a statement. “We highly recommend that providers take proactive steps to implement home-based care specific policies and procedures and conduct workplace trainings that address common issues such as what to do if a client is acting erratically, how to report unsafe conditions in the home [such as an unsecured firearm], de-escalation techniques, etc.”

Nurse resilience, decompression off balance: Press GaneyBecker's Clinical Leadership; by Erica Carbajal; 5/14/24Nurses have a hard time disconnecting from work, and may benefit from additional workplace resources that support them in doing so, according to findings from a new Press Ganey report on nurse resiliency. ... Below are four key findings from the report:

98-year-old Marine veteran in hospice care finally receives his high school diploma[MD] WJLA; by Jay Korff; 5/18/24A nearly 100-year-old Marine veteran in hospice Friday was hand-delivered the high school diploma he never received. 98-year-old Richard Remp was unable to get his diploma back in the 1940s because he dropped out at age 17 to serve in World War II, then Korea, and then Vietnam. But he savored the remarkable moment Friday.

What healthcare REITs mean for providers, patientsModern Healthcare; by Hayley DeSilva; 5/14/24Steward Health Care's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is the latest example of the significant role real estate investment trusts play in healthcare. REITs have served as a financial solution for providers and health systems, allowing them to broaden their networks without as hefty a capital investment. Steward, for example, is the largest tenant of Medical Properties Trust, which bought Steward's real estate assets in 2016. The REIT, which also owns 10% of Steward, has approved $75 million in debtor-in-possession financing to help Steward maintain patient care while looking for operators for its hospitals.

Owner of home health services agency and parent of disabled child arrested for Medicaid provider fraudFL Office of the Attorney General; 5/15/24Tallahassee, FL - Attorney General Ashley Moody’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit announced the arrest of the owner of a home health services agency and a parent of a disabled child for Medicaid provider fraud. Latrena Marie Thomas is the owner of A River’s Journey, a home health care agency with residential home care facilities located in Yulee and Jacksonville. Thomas is accused of hiring non-licensed individuals to provide hands-on personal care services to Medicaid recipients. In addition, Thomas paid Donald Ray Adams II, a parent of a disabled Medicaid recipient, to provide medically licensed care for his own child. In total, Thomas fraudulently billed Medicaid claims for 30 distinct medically needy Medicaid recipients, which caused a total loss of more than $1.6 million.

[Old news] Consumer Alerts added to the Nursing Home Compare website and the Five Star Quality Rating SystemCMS; 10/7/19Adding an “abuse icon” to facilities cited for abuse: Every nursing home resident deserves be treated with respect at all times. Abuse is never acceptable and CMS is very concerned about incidents related to abuse (including neglect and exploitation) in nursing homes. ... As part of this strategy, we want to make it easier for consumers to identify facilities with instances of non-compliance related to abuse. To do this, in October 2019, we are adding an icon to highlight facilities that meet the following criteria: 1) Facilities cited for abuse where residents were found to be harmed (Scope/Severity of G or higher) on the most recent standard survey, or on a complaint survey within the past 12 months; or 2) Facilities cited for abuse where residents were found to be potentially harmed (Scope/Severity of D or higher) on the most recent standard survey or a complaint survey within the past 12 months, and on the previous (i.e., second most recent) standard survey or on a complaint survey in the prior 12 months (i.e., from 24 months ago to 12 months ago).Publisher's Note: With apologies for "old news", this was "new news" to me - i.e., that Care Compare for Nursing Facilities includes a "red stop hand" and a "yellow triangle warning" to warn consumers of poor performers. When might this be added to Care Compare for Hospice, and what criteria might be used?

I Kept CryingJAMA Network; by Alexis Harmon; 4/15[Opinion] “The patient is a 31-week infant born via crash C-section in the setting of placental abruption.” How many times have I said that sentence as a physician? It seems like a million, or at least enough times that it became routine. At one point during my intern year, my colleagues and I cared for 3 sets of twin neonates all born between 30 and 31 weeks’ gestation. I remember finishing that rotation and feeling like caring for this population no longer felt “scary.” As pediatric residents, we knew how to prepare for these newborns and fully expected that they would have excellent outcomes medically. All this changed when I was curled in the fetal position, midcontraction, my thigh throbbing from a betamethasone injection and my spine burning from a lidocaine injection...Publisher's Note: A reminder that personal experience changes everything...

‘Bodacious’ mentorship, honesty needed to retain LTC leaders of tomorrow, experts sayMcKnight's Long-Term Care News; by Josh Henreckson; 5/17/24Cultivating mentorships in long-term care is vital to bringing up and retaining the next generation of sector leaders, a group of six prominent women leaders said this week at a McKnight’s Women of Distinction Forum panel. The speakers ... repeatedly emphasized the core needs of honesty, humility and an ongoing commitment to learning for successful mentors.

Connecticut hospices obtain carveout from sweeping safety billMcKnight's Home Care; by Adam Healy; 5/15/24Grassroots advocacy paid off for Connecticut’s hospice providers. Last week, they successfully obtained a carveout from Senate Bill 1, which requires home-based healthcare providers to run background checks on all potential clients. “It was basically a total victory,” Barbara Pearce, chief executive officer of The Connecticut Hospice and the main proponent calling for a carveout, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse. “You’re never going to defeat Senate Bill One, because they said - in naming it - it’s their top priority. We just tried to take hospice off, and we did.” ... The bill would have unintentionally limited patients’ access to hospice care, Pearce said. By the time a background check could be conducted on a client, it may be too late to provide effective care for the patient. Furthermore, current staffing challenges hospices face would make compliance even harder, she noted.