Top 10 nursing home strategies to avoid hospital admissions
By
Marge Mercury, RN, MS, CMCE
Oct 30, 2012
Hospitalizations of frail nursing home residents can result in higher costs, complications, and death. Fifteen percent of long-term nursing home residents are hospitalized in any given six-month period,...
Hospice improves your Quality Measures
By
Steven Littlehale
Jun 23, 2023
My father died a little over a year ago. While I usually derive tremendous comfort and support by sharing both happy and sad milestones with friends, family, and colleagues, in this instance, sharing the...
How I found purpose in hospice nursing
By
Patty Husted
Nov 03, 2023
After working for more than 30 years in the field of hospice nursing – exploring roles across specialties, including patient services, operations and management – I can confidently say that hospice...
Health reform, Steve Jobs and owning more of the aging services pie
By
Anthony Cirillo
May 05, 2010
To survive in this new era of healthcare reform, long-term care organizations need to carve out a bigger role in the continuum of care.
Ask the care expert … about hospice rules
By
Sherrie Dornberger
Dec 01, 2013
I heard the rules recently changed related to hospice. Do you know what will be included?
LTC visitor data: Home health, hospice care held steady while family visits plummeted
By
Diane Eastabrook
May 04, 2022
An analysis of sign-ins at 6,000 SNFs and senior living facilities found that third-party care such as home health visits remained consistent during the pandemic, while family visits were curtailed.
Seniors’ misconceptions about advanced cancer may reduce use of hospice services: study
By
Alicia Lasek
Mar 02, 2022
Older adults with advanced cancer often misjudge the time they have left to live. This may increase their chances for unnecessary hospitalization and likelihood to neglect hospice care, investigators say.
Rapid growth of for-profit hospices raises ethical concerns, study says
May 19, 2011
The success of the for-profit hospice industry has caused concern among ethicists who say that the goal of profitability interferes with their ability to provide quality end-of-life care, according to...
CMS updates coding instructions for hospice site of service, principal diagnosis
By
Tim Mullaney
Sep 02, 2014
A new Medicare hospice manual update includes instructions for which principal diagnosis codes are acceptable, and clarifies which codes should be used for services in a skilled versus non-skilled nursing...
CMS revises hospice rules
By
Tim Mullaney
Aug 02, 2013
A long-term care provider and its hospice partner will need to draw up a detailed contract, according to a final rule released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and published in the Federal...