Literature Review

Medical Aid in Dying and our ethical duties—Call to actionJAMA Health Forum; by Yesne Alici, Liz Blackler, Julia Danielle Kulikowski, Amy Scharf; 1/26Medical aid in dying (MAID) is legal in 11 US states and Washington, DC, and is being actively considered in 18 additional states ... In all jurisdictions where MAID is legal, hospital systems have the option to opt out of providing MAID services but are legally obligated to share information about where patients can access resources. We maintain that all hospital systems and individual clinicians have an ethical responsibility to go beyond simply sharing information. Patients are going to ask about MAID, and institutions are ethically obligated to establish comprehensive policies that empower and encourage their clinical staffs—primarily physicians but also nurses and advanced practice clinicians—to purposefully and thoughtfully respond. Here, we describe the experience of our institution, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), in developing policies and procedures to fulfill this responsibility and highlight lessons for other health care organizations and oncology practices seeking to accomplish similar goals.

Senior Nannies Home Care Services joins forces with Choice Health at Home Desert Sun, EIN Presswire, Tyler, TX; Press Release; 1/30/26 Senior Nannies Home Care Services and Senior Advantages Assisted Living Placement Services (“Senior Nannies”), ... is proud to announce it has joined forces with Choice Health at Home (“Choice”), a leading multi-state operator of home health, hospice, personal care, rehabilitation, and specialty in-home services. The transaction marks Choice’s entry into the Southeastern United States, establishing Florida as a strategic anchor and creating a scaled, integrated personal care platform to support a broader regional expansion.

What Salem-area lawmakers are prioritizing for the 2026 session Salem Reporter, Salem, OR; by Rachel Alexander and Hailey Cook; 2/4/26 ... Oregon’s month-long legislative session got underway on Monday, Feb.2. The fast-paced short session occurs in even years. ... Hospice care oversight: SB 1575 would add protections for patients in hospice care. The new rules would include requiring a background check for business owners, ensuring agencies have the financial resources to care for patients and pausing the issuance of new hospice licenses until the state rules are implemented.  Patterson said the change was at the request of the Oregon Hospice and Palliative Care Association. “In other states there has been a lot of fraud and abuse, and we want to prevent that from happening here in Oregon,” she said. 

Woman who allegedly stole $3.2m from Medicare boasted about lavish home Complex; by Helen Storms; 2/7/26 A California woman has been arrested after allegedly stealing $3.2 million from Medicare as part of an elaborate hospice scam. The woman, identified as 49-year-old Flor Mora, shared photos of the lavish $4 million dream home she bought from the funds she is accused of stealing before being hit with felony charges. Mora purchased the luxurious seaside home located in the Carmel Highlands in Monterey County, California, in November 2025. It would later be featured in the Washington Street Journal and even voted the House of the Year. Little did voters know that Mora had paid for the early 20th-century style home with reportedly stolen funds.Editor's Note: For more, visit our post yesterday, "California AG Bonta charges 7 in Monterey County over hospice fraud scheme totaling $3.2m."

Hospice doctor shares what happens in the moments immediately after death Good; by Adam Albright Hanna; 2/3/26 Throughout human history, one question has bewildered every civilization, society, and individual. What happens after we die? For some people, it is a question for science. For others, it is a question of faith. But for Dr. B.J. Miller, it is a question that he is totally fine not knowing the answer to. Miller is a hospice and palliative care physician at the University of California, San Francisco. He is one of the world's leading voices on dignified death, and for him, the end of life is actually about the living. ... "I’ve been around people who are just about to die," Miller said. "Bodies that have just died. And there is this lingering sense, it’s true. There’s a feeling. It’s a palpable... yeah, there’s a lingering." ... "I didn’t need to have control over everything, I didn’t need to know the answers anymore. I mean, I love not knowing. The answer’s unimportant. It’s just a sacred and gorgeous moment."Editor's Note: Having served in direct hospice patient care from 1993–2002, I was present with many persons during their active dying and in the moments just after death, including attending deaths as a chaplain. Over time—and especially through the intimate experience of my parents’ deaths—that sense of sacredness Dr. Miller describes remains real for me. So I find myself wondering and asking non-clinical leaders: when you look at Average Daily Census (ADC), Length of Stay (LOS), and other familiar metrics, what do you see? Numbers on a spreadsheet? Or living measures of something immeasurably human—something that truly matters?

Social Media Watch 2/6/26

Governor Hochul signs Medical Aid in Dying Act into New York state law New York State - Governor Kathy Hochul, Albany, NY; Press Release; 2/6/26 Governor Hochul today signed legislation S.138/A.136 that will allow medical aid in dying to be available to terminally ill New Yorkers with less than six months to live. This historic bill signing comes after careful reflection and deliberation with the sponsors of the bill, advocacy organizations, and everyday New Yorkers ... The bill, as passed by the Legislature originally included a number of protections in order to ensure that no patient was coerced into choosing medical aid in dying and that no health care professional or religiously affiliated health facility would be forced to offer medical aid in dying. The Governor worked with the Legislature to include additional guardrails that will make sure people won’t be taken advantage of, while still ensuring terminally ill New Yorkers have the choice to die comfortably and on their own terms, including: [continue reading] ...

Executive Personnel Changes - 1/30/26

[Australia] Cancer and dementia incidence are strongly correlated worldwide: Evidence from cross-national regression analysesFuture Science OA; by Wenpeng You, Brendon J Coventry, Maciej Henneberg; 12/25Cancer and dementia are two major health problems affecting millions of people around the world. Countries with higher cancer rates almost always have higher dementia rates. Even after we accounted for income, life expectancy, and other social factors, cancer remained one of the strongest predictors of dementia. These findings suggest that cancer and dementia share many of the same underlying causes, such as aging, chronic inflammation, lifestyle habits, and changes that come with economic development. Understanding these shared patterns can help countries plan for future healthcare needs.

HopeWest holds 30th annual gala to support new dementia program KJCT 8 News - ABC, Grand Junction, CO; by Robbie Patla; 2/1/26 HopeWest held its 30th annual gala on January 31, bringing community members and partners together to support its new Dementia Support Program, which launched in July 2025. ... "This program really supports the caregiver’s journey and provides them with resources so that they are knowledgeable and have the tools to take care of their loved one,” said Breeana Gumpert, Chief Development Officer for HopeWest. ... Over 520 Grand Valley residents attended the sold-out event, which featured a “Romantic Renaissance” theme and raised funds for the program through ticket sales, a silent auction, and donations.

Protecting patients at the end of life why CON still matters - part 2 Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); podcast hosted by Chris Comeaux with Paul A. Ledford and Tim Rogers;  1/30/26 In Part Two of Protecting Patients at the End of Life: Why CON Still Matters, host Chris Comeaux continues the conversation with two of the nation’s most respected hospice policy leaders—Paul A. Ledford, President & CEO of the Florida Hospice & Palliative Care Association, and Tim Rogers, President & CEO of the Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina. This episode moves beyond regulatory theory and into the real-world patient and family experience—especially in states without hospice Certificate of Need (CON) laws. Drawing on decades of leadership, personal stories of loved ones in hospice, and data-informed insights, Paul and Tim explore what families actually face when hospice markets are oversaturated, fragmented, or poorly regulated.

Congressional hearing confronts hospice, health care fraud Hospice News; by Jim Parker; 2/4/26 Regulatory reform, better data and more state-federal and other stakeholder partnerships are necessary to combat health care fraud in the United States, including among hospices. This was a key message in a recent hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Hospice fraud has been rampant in certain states. Unscrupulous providers have enrolled patients in hospice who were not eligible or without their knowledge or consent. They have also transferred patients from one hospice to another in exchange for monetary payments, engaged in “license flipping,” and paid illegal kickbacks for referrals, among other abuses.