A Strategic Path Forward for Hospice and Palliative Care-Webinar Recording

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The webinar, “A Strategic Path Forward for Hospice and Palliative Care,” featured Dr. Ira Biok, a veteran palliative care physician, discussing critical challenges in U.S. hospice care and proposing actionable solutions. Dr. Biok highlighted the current "crisis" in hospice, marked by an influx of nearly 7,000 licensed hospice programs—particularly in states like California—that include fraudulent or low-quality providers. He emphasized that the focus should not be ownership status (for-profit vs. non-profit) since quality varies within all types but on demonstrable high-quality care.<br /><br />Key problems include inadequate clinical staffing ratios, insufficient crisis management, lack of continuous home or inpatient care, and variability in patient and family experience metrics. Dr. Biok underlined the impact of "toxic capitalism," where profit motives can negatively influence care access and quality. He advocated for embracing capitalism while ensuring hospitals and hospices make profits solely by providing reliable, excellent care.<br /><br />The proposed path forward involves establishing clear clinical and program standards, developing meaningful quality measures, transparent public reporting, and authentic hospice branding to boost quality-based competition. Dr. Biok also focused on the declining physician home visits in hospice care, urging program standards that enable physicians to provide direct patient care, aligning this with regulatory and financial support.<br /><br />Panelists echoed the need for boldness within the field—pursuing stricter certification requirements, reforming auditing and oversight to focus on meaningful quality measures, and encouraging preferred provider networks to filter out poor providers. The session concluded with calls for collective action to overcome denial of hospice's systemic problems, emphasizing pride in hospice’s unique role in fostering wellbeing at life’s end.

Keywords

Hospice Care

Palliative Care

Dr. Ira Biok

Hospice Crisis

Quality Measures

Clinical Staffing Ratios

Toxic Capitalism

Hospice Program Standards

Physician Home Visits

Hospice Certification Reform