Literature Review

CAPC Palliative Care Provider DirectoryPress Release, 12/4/23Finding palliative care services should be easy and convenient, not only for patients living with a serious illness, and their families, but also for their medical teams. CAPC’s national Palliative Care Provider Directory provides a quick and easy way for patients, families, and referring clinicians to locate and contact palliative care programs in their area.

NY latest to adopt LGBTQ+ Bill of Rights for long-term care residentsMcKnight’s Senior LivingDecember 4, 2023New York has become the latest state to adopt legislation establishing a bill of rights for LGBTQ+ residents in other long-term care facilities. S 1783A / A 372 prohibits assisted living communities and other long-term care facilities and their staffs from discriminating against residents on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or HIV status.

State’s regulators under fire for not imposing ‘meaningful’ punishment on operatorsMcKnight’s Senior LivingDecember 4, 2023If provider punishments in Maine ramp up in the near future, operators won’t need to look far for the catalyst. A ProPublica investigation into what it calls the failures of the state’s oversight agencies is creating a lot of heat in and around the sector. ... In partnership with The Maine Monitor, ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network shined a spotlight on the state’s health department for citing dozens of resident rights violations and hundreds of other deficiencies between 2020 and 2022 but imposing only the “lowest intervention possible, even for some of the most serious abuse and neglect incidents.” ... Long-term care advocates said that a lack of regulatory enforcement essentially encourages bad behavior. Industry representatives called for increasing nursing hours and requiring on-site medical directors in assisted living rather than imposing sanctions.

Light-a-Life Tree Lighting for Hospice BuffaloWKBW-TV (Buffalo, NY)December 2, 2023Buffalo, NY—Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo hosted its 35th annual Light-a-Life Memorial Tree Lighting Ceremony. This is a longstanding tradition that provides an opportunity to remember loved ones who were cared for by Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo.

It’s OK to Never ‘Get Over’ Your GriefBy Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode, MA, PhDNew York TimesDecember 3, 2023Over the past century, traditional mourning practices have fallen out of favor in the West. Black is now usually worn only to a funeral, and not always then. But traditional mourning practices were designed to do just that: to preserve a place for the dead among the living, to help mourners carry the weight of their grief not by getting over it but by maintaining their relationship with the deceased (as metaphysically suspect as that might sound to modern ears). Today we are encouraged to step out from the shadow loss casts over our lives and return to happiness. ... This approach to grief and mourning might seem to be a good thing, like picking yourself up after a fall. It is arguably less morbid, with its emphasis on “getting closure” and “moving on” in a process whose goal is “healing.” But I fear the benefits do not outweigh the costs. ... [Editor’s Note: The author is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Warsaw and a research fellow at Blackfriars Hall at the University of Oxford. He is the editor of “The Meaning of Mourning: Perspectives on Death, Loss, and Grief.”]

‘Between Life & Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story’ Official TrailerMSNBC.comNovember 22, 2023Sunday, December 3rd, MSNBC Films presents “Between Life & Death,” an NBC News Studios production. The documentary retraces the tragic story of Terri Schiavo from the 1990s and early 2000s, going beyond the headlines of the national debate over her life that reverberates in today’s culture wars. Watch “Between Life & Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story,” Sunday, December 3rd at 10pm ET on MSNBC and streaming on Peacock.[Editor’s Note: To watch the one-minute trailer for this 90-minute documentary, click here. There is no pdf associated with this item.]

Three historic California hospices to mergeMcKnight’s Home Care DailyDecember 4, 2023A blockbuster merger of three long-standing providers will create the largest independent nonprofit hospice network in northern California. By the Bay Health, Mission Hospice & Home Care and Hope Hospice, three providers with deep roots in their communities, disclosed the deal in a statement Friday.

Why Doctors and Pharmacists Are in RevoltNew York TimesDecember 3, 2023... And doctors are not the only health professionals who are unionizing or protesting in greater numbers. Health care workers, many of them nurses, held eight major work stoppages last year—the most in a decade—and are on pace to match or exceed that number this year. This fall, dozens of nonunion pharmacists at CVS and Walgreens stores called in sick or walked off the job to protest understaffing, many for a full day or more.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~Mahatma GandhiSign up for our free daily newsletters here!UNSUBSCRIBE NOTICE: Hospice & Palliative Care Today is a free subscription email. If you believe you have received this email in error, or if you no longer wish to receive Hospice & Palliative Care Today, please unsubscribe here or reply to this email with the message “Unsubscribe”. Thank you.

Trinity slims operating loss to $58.6M in FY Q1Becker’s Hospital CFO ReportDecember 1, 2023Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health reported an operating loss of $58.6 million (-1% margin) in the first quarter of the fiscal year—the three months ended Sept. 30—compared to a $146.3 million loss (-2.9% margin) during the same period in 2022. For the fiscal first quarter, operating revenue increased 12.4% year over year to $5.6 billion.

‘It will put us out of business’—Remington pharmacist fights corporate fees, under-paymentsCulpeper (VA) Star-ExponentDecember 1, 2023Remington, VA—A local pharmacist is joining voices calling for reform and oversight of corporate-run “Pharmacy Benefit Managers” (PBMs) he said are straining the historic small-town pharmacy he runs, located on Main Street since 1913, still with its original soda fountain. Travis Hale, PharmD, president of Apothecary Solutions Inc., doing business as Remington Drug Co., said the payment practices of the prescription drug middlemen are responsible for community pharmacies closing at an alarming rate.

OIG FY 2022 Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program Annual ReportPress Release 11/14/23OIG publishes the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program Report for Fiscal Year 2022 and posts two enforcement actions. Three hospice actions in this report (download report and search for "hospice").