2025 Annual Summit Hospice Livestream Event

11:00am - 12:15pm CST | Leading With Love: Tackling Hard Problems and Breathing New Life Into Hospice

Despite demonstrating that much better care for seriously ill and dying people is both feasible and affordable, the transformative potential of hospice and palliative care remains unfulfilled and plagued with uneven quality, inequitable access, outdated assumptions and systems, and outright fraud. And yet, our field’s founding purpose and core values – and our successes – suggest a clear way forward. Dr. Byock offers a practical strategy with 5 key elements for addressing the hard problems we face and realizing our field’s dual mission of providing the best care for ill and dying people, and helping society integrate illness, caregiving, dying, and grieving within a continuum of living fully.

12:45 -1:45pm CST | Navigating Perils and Protecting the Potential of Hospice Care (panel discussion)

Our panel of clinical and administrative experts will address key challenges that hospices face and discuss practical solutions. Topics will include:

• What more can our industry do to better protect vulnerable patients from unscrupulous hospice providers?
• What are reasonable caseloads for hospice nurses that ensure safe and effective care, while supporting nurses’ professional satisfaction?
• How can the public distinguish good hospices from bad ones, and excellent hospices from those that are mediocre?
• Can organizations develop preferred providers lists for discharge planners, referring physicians, as well as patients and families?
• What are ways to ensure that hospice physicians can fully participate in IDT meetings, make patient visits when necessary, and be available in emergencies?
• For-profit hospice companies, including those that are publicly traded and private equity owned, are currently associated with higher margins, but lower quality. To what extent could clear clinical and programmatic standards, meaningful quality metrics, and quality-based competition diminish the importance of ownership?

CE: NHA & SW, certificate of attendance