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As 2021 comes to a close, Jon sits down with Edo Banach and Tarrah Lowry, NHPCO board member and COO of Trustbridge. Jon, Edo, and Tarrah discuss the challenges of the past year as well as the successes and what the field will face in 2022. Tarrah also provides valuable insight into how leaders can re-center themselves in the mission of hospice and palliative care.

The CY22 Home Health final rule included hospice provisions on survey reform and enforcement remedies. In this podcast, Jon talks with Judi Lund Person and special guest Kimberly Skehan, Director of Compliance, Regulatory & Quality at SimiTree Healthcare Consulting about these topics. Learn more about the language and timing of the rule, the different enforcement remedies CMS can utilize for condition level deficiencies, and what hospices should do now to prepare.

Jon sits down with Lori Bishop and a new member of the NHPCO team: Logan Hoover, Director of Legislative Affairs. NHPCO and the Hospice Action Network (HAN) work together closely to ensure the needs and concerns of providers are brought to Congress, and grassroots advocacy is a key piece of the puzzle. Learn how your involvement can make a difference for the field and help NHPCO and HAN get you the tools and resources you need.

NHPCO's Quality Connections program is about to wrap up its inaugural year. NHPCO's Jennifer Kennedy and Hope Fost provide an overview of Quality Connections and its value for providers as we move toward a fee-for-performance model. Special guest Sarah Simmons from Calvert Hospice talks about her experience in the Quality Connections program and how Calvert Hospice became the first program to earn all four rings. And we end with a grateful farewell to Jennifer before she begins the next step of her career.

Later this month, NHPCO will be releasing Palliative Care Core Screening Tools. This resource is designed for hospice and palliative care teams to use with partners, such as primary care physicians and specialists, to help determine when a patient is seriously ill and may benefit from additional support. NHPCO's Lori Bishop talks with Dr. Bernice Burkarth and Dr. Tim Jessick about how these and other resources can create evidence and a shared vision of recommendations for patients across medical disciplines.

Jon R sits down with NHPCO's Jennifer Kennedy and special guest Natalie McNeal, Executive Director of WellStar Community Hospice in Georgia. Jennifer provides an update on the latest news from CMS related to the CAHPS survey, and Natalie shares how her hospice adapted their practices in a COVID world to maintain their scores. Hear some practical tips of how your hospice can address low scoring topics in innovative ways.

In this month's podcast, NHPCO's summer Diversity, Equity and Inclusion intern Lauren Wallace interviews Nicole McCann-Davis, chair of NHPCO's Diversity Advisory Council. Learn more about why DEI is so important in health care and how NHPCO's Diversity Advisory Council is working to support providers in their journey to provide equitable care

In this month's podcast, JR talks with NHPCO's Judi Lund Person and Jennifer Kennedy about the FY22 Hospice Wage Index Final Rule. Along with basic information about the wage index values and rates, Judi and Jennifer take a deeper dive into how the final rule will affect providers - from regulatory areas of interest for CMS to changes in public reporting and data. Resources Mentioned in this Podcast FY22 Hospice Wage Index Final Rule Resources for NHPCO Members NHPCO Quality Connections Deprescribing Toolkit (under "Deprescribing Medications" header)

This episode features NHPCO's Lori Bishop along with two special guests - Karla Weng and Janelle Shearer from Stratis Health. Karla and Janelle share their experiences working with rural communities to address the gap of palliative care services, from developing a framework to keeping it sustainable. They have also developed a toolkit that contains guidance and links to a comprehensive set of resources to build capacity to offer palliative care services. 

This episode features NHPCO's Lori Bishop, Annie Acs, and special guest Dave Ault, Counsel at Fagere Drinker. Lori, Annie and Dave provide an update on CMMI's models and demos and discuss contracting opportunities for providers, especially for community-based palliative care. Even if you’re comfortable in the situation you’re in, Dave encourages providers to think about how healthcare payment is moving and that it’s moving very quickly, but you don’t need to be left behind because there are so many different ways to participate. The podcast references a blog from NHPCO and NORC at the University of Chicago posted on the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care website. Click through to read more: "Ensuring Equitable Access to Needed Care for the Seriously Ill through the Medicare Care Choices Model (MCCM) ."

In this week's episode, Jon R. welcomes NHPCO's Judi Lund Person along with Stacy Groff, Vice President of Specialized Services at Tidewell Hospice. CMS is encouraging hospice programs to start rebuilding their volunteer programs in anticipation of the end of the public health emergency (and the 1135 waivers) on or around December 31, 2021. Judi and Stacy discuss what programs should be doing now to prepare, how leaders can empower their volunteer management staff as they work toward the 5% requirement, and utilizing MyNHPCO for support.

This episode, originally aired in April 2019, features messages and themes that continue to be timely. In this special leadership episode, Jon R. sits down with former NHO President and CEO Jay Mahoney and Empath Health CEO Rafael Sciullo to discuss our evolution as an organization and how the principles that guided hospice over 40 years ago still hold true today.

In this week's podcast, Jon talks with NHPCO's Judi Lund Person and Jennifer Kennedy about the FY22 Hospice Wage Index Proposed Rule. Listen to hear about both the regulatory and quality focused aspects of the proposed rule, including rebasing of rates, the importance of accurate cost reports, how 2022 quality data will impact 2024 payments, and more. Jon also shares NHPCO's participation in the HHS "We Can Do This" campaign.

In this week's podcast, JR talks with NHPCO's Annie Acs and Lori Bishop. Annie gives an update on CMMI models and demos, and Lori connects the dots between these models, medical group practices, and opportunities to provide palliative care. Listen to learn more and hear how these opportunities, along with free resources from NHPCO, can also help you better serve underserved populations. And hear about a Disney film that surprised JR.

In this week's podcast, NHPCO's Lori Bishop and Jennifer Kennedy provide an update on HQRP. Listen in to learn more about Hospice Visits in the Last Days of Life (HVLDL), the Hospice Care Index, value-based reimbursement, the HOPE tool, and how NHPCO's Quality Connections can help you be prepared for what's to come.

In this week's podcast, Jennifer Kennedy sits down with Christine Nidd of Hospice of the Northwest and Natalie McNeal of Wellstar Community Hospice, advisors on the NHPCO Quality and Standards Committee. Christine and Natalie reflect on the past year of the COVID-19 public health emergency and share surprises, lessons learned, and emergency preparedness practices they'll continue using even as COVID-19 infections begin to subside. Listen in for practices that could be useful for your program.

In this week's podcast episode, JR sits down with NHPCO's Judi Lund Person and Kim Skehan, Director of Compliance, Regulatory and Quality from Simione Healthcare Consultant to discuss survey readiness. Learn more about the changes Kim and Judi have noticed in surveyors and the survey process in the last year, and take away concrete things your organization can be doing now to be ready for future surveys.

In this episode of the podcast, JR talks with Lori Bishop, NHPCO's Vice President of Palliative and Advanced Care, and Balu Natarajan, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Seasons Healthcare Management and chair of NHPCO's Palliative Care Council. Lori and Balu discuss the future of community-based palliative care, how that can integrate into CMS models and demos, and why "we can't stand still" when it comes to the future of serious illness care.

The MyNHPCO Pharmacist Community, in collaboration with the MyNHPCO Physician/Advanced Practice Provider Community and numerous hospice professionals, released the NHPCO Deprescribing Toolkit for NHPCO members. In this episode of the podcast, JR talks with Judi Lund Person and Jason Kimbrel, Vice President of Hospice Services for Optum and MyNHPCO Pharmacist Community Leader. Learn how to approach deprescribing with your interdisciplinary team and how the new toolkit can help. NHPCO members, log in and visit the Regulatory > Drugs & Medications page to download the toolkit.

This is the second part of our two-part series on the things you can (and should be) considering this year. Part 1 focused on the most important regulatory and policy components and today's episode covers quality, models and demos. Hear exciting opportunities for providers in the year to come.