Literature Review

Hospices’ top legislative priorities Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 9/18/26As the midterm elections approach, hospices have unfinished business in the halls of Congress. Providers have identified several high priority pieces of legislation they would like to see passed before this Congress ends in December, according to healthcare leaders attending the National Alliance for Care at Home’s Advocacy Week on Capitol Hill. Most of these are oriented around the common theme of preserving access to home-based care. “Care at home already has bipartisan support and recognition as a cost-effective, patient-preferred solution,” said Jennifer Sheets, CEO of the Alliance, in a statement. “As demand continues to grow, we are committed to being a strong partner with Congress to help federal policy grow with it.”

For families facing the unthinkable, NPHI launches new Guide to help navigate a child’s serious illness National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI), Washington, DC; Press Release; 9/14/26 ... Fewer than one in 10 children who die in the United States receive hospice care, underscoring an important opportunity to better support families facing a child’s serious illness. The National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI), the national voice for nonprofit hospice and advanced illness care, recently released the Advanced Pediatric Care™ Patient & Caregiver Guide — a free national resource created by pediatric hospice and palliative care experts from nonprofit providers across the country to give families something the system has never reliably given them: national clear, trustworthy guidance when a child is seriously ill. [Download the Guide]

Hospice Foundation of America receives Partner of the Year Award from Penn State College of MedicineHospice Foundation of America, Washington, DC; Press Release, Cindy Bramble; 9/11/26 Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) was named 2026 Partner of the Year by the Penn State University College of Medicine [Thursday, 9/10]. The award recognizes HFA’s significant contributions to a National Institutes of Health funded research initiative, the Project Talk Trial, which studied how to best engage communities across the U.S. in advance care planning. ... With its vast national network, HFA connected PSU College of Medicine researchers to community organizations across the country to bring advance care planning conversations to 1,799 people in 78 communities across 32 states and the District of Columbia. Project Talk Trial is the largest research study of its kind.Editor's Note: Congratulations, Hospice Foundation of America! We thank you for your longstanding, innovative leadership to improve hospice care throughout our nation.

LeadingAge, coalition partners tell CMS: don’t punish good Medicare providers LeadingAge, Washington, DC; contact Colleen Knudsen; 8/31/26 In a joint sign-on letter led by LeadingAge, the association of nonprofit and mission-driven providers of aging services and submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) today, a coalition of 19 partners representing hospitals, physician and clinician practices, post-acute and long-term care providers, home health and hospice agencies, suppliers, and the beneficiaries served by all, warn the agency that the proposed changes to Medicare provider enrollment provisions, included in the Calendar Year (CY) 2027 Home Health Prospective Payment System (PPS) Rule, risk penalizing legitimate providers and could result in limiting beneficiary access to care. The coalition fundamentally supports CMS’ responsibility to protect the Medicare Trust Fund and beneficiaries from fraud, waste, and abuse. However, ...

Alliance submits comments in response to CY 2027 Home Health Proposed Rule National Alliance for Care at Home, Alexandria, VA; Press Release; 9/1/26 The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) has submitted comments in response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Calendar Year (CY) 2027 Home Health Prospective Payment System Rate and Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics, and Supplies Competitive Bidding Program Updates proposed rule.  The letter notes that the Alliance appreciates that, for the first time since CY 2022, CMS proposes a full annual payment update, does not propose to apply a new permanent adjustment, [and ...] However, the comment also emphasizes that these decisions do not undo the harm already built into the payment rate, nor do they do enough to protect access to care across the country. 

AARP is working to root out health care ageism AARP; by Megan O'Reilly; 7/27/26 ... In collaboration with the Gerontological Society of America, AARP launched a training program last year to help future health professionals recognize and stop age-based bias. Tested at 13 universities across the country with about 500 students, the program uses health care scenarios and practical tools that remind providers to listen first and treat people as individuals, not stereotypes. ... Additionally, AARP has pushed for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to allow Medicare to cover essential training for family caregivers. And we fought for a measure to assess hospitals’ commitment to improving care for older patients. We also collaborated with the Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative to train ER personnel to recognize dementia symptoms. ...

Hospice and Palliative Medicine Advisory Committee Meeting Summary | Spring 2026American Board of Internal Medicince | ABIM Blog, Philadelphia, PA; by ABIM; 7/31/26 The Hospice and Palliative Medicine Advisory Committee held its spring meeting on April 28, 2026. Representatives from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) and guests from the University of Colorado joined for a portion of the meeting. ... The following is a summary of the spring meeting. ... Furman S. McDonald, MD, MPH, President and CEO of ABIM and the ABIM Foundation, discussed progress on ABIM’s strategic initiatives, including:

National Alliance for Care at Home welcomes Denis Fleming Jr. as Chief Government Affairs Officer  National Alliance for Care at Home, Alexandria, VA; Press Release; 7/23/26 The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) today announced longtime industry leader Denis Fleming Jr. will serve as Chief Government Affairs Officer effective August 10. Fleming is a distinguished government affairs leader bringing over two decades of experience spanning key leadership roles in Congress, with state executive bodies, and major home health and hospice companies. Most recently, Fleming served as Vice President of Federal Government Affairs with United Health Group after serving 8 years as Senior Vice President & Legislative Counsel, State and Federal Affairs at LHC Group, where he led federal and state advocacy for this national home health and hospice provider. 

National Alliance for Care at Home hosts 2026 Finance and Technology Summit National Alliance for Care at Home, Alexandria, VA; Press Release; 7/14/26 On July 12-14, the National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) successfully hosted the 2026 Alliance Finance and Technology Summit in Boston, MA. The Summit brought together leaders from across the care at home continuum, with expert-led sessions, peer collaboration, and insights into digital transformation, data strategy, and tech-enabled care delivery. More than 600 attendees and exhibitors participated in the comprehensive program, which featured keynote presentations, concurrent educational sessions, networking opportunities, award presentations, and a fundraiser at Fenway Park for the Research Institute for Home Care.

A smarter approach to fraud means better care at home The Hill | Opinion; by Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) and Jennifer Sheets; 6/23/26 .. Home health and hospice providers meet people where they are — both physically and through wraparound support — caring for them in their homes at the end of life or during critical healing and recovery periods when trust is paramount. ... Fraudulent operators do not simply steal taxpayer dollars; they harm real people, exploit vulnerable individuals, undermine legitimate providers, and erode confidence in critical healthcare services that families depend on every day. Combatting fraud, waste and abuse in healthcare must remain a national priority. That is why I am glad to partner with the National Alliance for Care at Home on the Protecting Seniors and Stopping Fraudsters Act, designed to strengthen program integrity in home health and hospice while protecting access to care for patients who depend on these services, and reducing burden for legitimate providers.

NPHI calls for thoughtful hospice payment reform that rewards high-quality care National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI), Washington, DC; Press Release; 6/16/26The National Partnership for Healthcare and Hospice Innovation (NPHI)is calling for thoughtful modernization of the Medicare Hospice Benefit while raising concerns about recommendations contained in a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that could fundamentally alter the hospice benefit and potentially lead to substantial changes in provider reimbursement. NPHI is exploring potential reforms to the current hospice payment structure, including steps to reduce incentives for bad actors and poor-quality care by lowering the hospice aggregate cap, and reallocating dollars within the existing payment methodology to better compensate high-quality, mission-driven providers caring for the sickest patients. NPHI believes these types of reforms would better align reimbursement with patient needs, preserve the core principles of hospice care, and encourage providers to deliver care based on patient need rather than financial incentives. ...

GAO uses home health as benchmark to question Medicare hospice payments Home Health News; by Morgan Gonzales with Jim Parker; 6/9/26 ... GAO said Medicare could have saved about $7.6 billion if hospice routine home care from 2022 through 2024 had been reimbursed using adjusted home health per-visit rates rather than hospice’s current per-day payment system, according to a GAO report released Tuesday [6/9]. ... While The Alliance questioned the GAO’s comparison of hospice to home health, Mollie Gurian, vice president of policy and government affairs for LeadingAge, said that the comparison could be a helpful tool.

Hospice advocates push back on CMS’ proposed program integrity scoring system McKnights Home Care; by Liza Berger; 6/3/26 In recent comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, hospice advocates criticized the new scoring system, the Service and Spending Variation Index, or SSVI, that CMS put forth in its fiscal year 2027 hospice proposed rule in April to curb fraud in the sector. They cited a flawed methodology underlying the scores and called for CMS to take down two years of publicly posted data. ...The National Alliance for Care at Home pointed to inaccurate scoring in publicly posted data. “This data could cause substantial reputational harm to hospices for mistakes made by CMS in file construction and assigning scores,” Jennifer Sheets, CEO said.LeadingAge said the nonhospice spending measure “lacks transparency, disregards the influence of size and scale, includes questionable data, and is entirely inactionable for hospices.” Such a measure could target the wrong providers, LeadingAge argued. Editor's Note: Explore details from The Alliance, LeadingAge, and NPHI.