Moratorium morphs hospice affiliation landscape 
Hospice News; by Holly Vossel; 9/22/26 
A national temporary ban on new Medicare enrollment could have long-term impacts on hospice affiliations among nonprofit providers. Fraudsters have bilked billions of Medicare dollars posing as new legitimate providers. The program integrity issues moved the moratoria forward and caused a trickle effect on mergers, acquisitions, affiliations and organic growth in the hospice space. This is according to Mark Kulik, senior managing director at merger and acquisition advisory firm The Braff Group. The moratoria could result in an uptick of nonprofit affiliations, particularly in states with certificate of need (CON) policies, Kulik indicated.

ClearPath Healthcare meets in-home primary need in Central Oregon 
Redmond Spokesman; by Emily Rogers; 9/22/26 
ClearPath Healthcare, a hospice leader in Central Oregon for more than 40 years, launched its in-home primary in May and demand has been through the roof due to the overwhelming amount of home-bound seniors in Deschutes County. ... ClearPath Healthcare, which changed its name from Hospice of Redmond in December 2025, offers in-home primary care ... The nonprofit also provides hospice and transitional care across Central Oregon, ...

Hospice of South Texas dedicates new building 
The Schulenburg Sticker, Schulenburg, Fayette County, TX; by News Staff; 9/22/26 
Hospice of South Texas celebrated an exciting milestone with the dedication and blessing of a new support services building on the campus of the Dornburg Center of Compassion in Victoria on Wednesday, Aug. 26. Officiating were area pastor and board president Herb Beyer and Bishop Brendan Cahill of the Catholic Diocese of Victoria.

Hospice of Humboldt expands in-home palliative care with $250K match 
Archynewsy; by D. Natalie Singh; 9/23/26
Hospice of Humboldt has launched a $500,000 campaign to expand its Home-Based Palliative Care program, bolstered by a $250,000 matching gift from the owners of Premier Financial Group, according to reports from the Lost Coast Outpost. The program, which delivers medical care, symptom management, and care coordination directly to patients’ homes, currently serves 70 patients and families but sits at full capacity with a six- to eight-week waitlist.

4 in 5 doctors now work for ‘corporate entities’ as autonomy erodes 
Forbes; by Bruce Japsen; 9/8/26 
Corporate entities now employ 82% of U.S. physicians, a trend eroding doctor autonomy, according to a new Physicians Advocacy Institute report. The survey reveals nearly half of doctors feel pressured to prioritize patient volume over optimal care. Furthermore, 63% encounter corporate barriers to out-of-network referrals, and 59% feel compelled to keep patients within their health system. PAI's CEO, Kelly Kenney, asserts that corporate owners' primary allegiance is to profits, not patients, directly restricting physicians' ability to ensure the best care.

Taxpayer-funded health care programs hit with $17.5 billion in fraud in one year 
Before It's News; 9/23/26 
Fraud in taxpayer-funded health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid is so pervasive that the government identified a breathtaking $17.5 billion in scams in just one year, according to an analysis conducted by the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), ... The crimes occurred in all 50 states, as well as Washington D.C, and U.S. territories including Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. A lengthy report made public this month identifies the largest number of offenders in California (3,141), followed by Florida (1,378), New York (989) and Minnesota (946) with some of the scams involving criminal networks connected to foreign entities.

Beyond the book: How stories help shape future physicians 
University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV); by Doug Criss; 9/22/26 
Katie Houk builds a medical humanities collection that gives students at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine space to reflect, create, and better understand the people they will care for. ... “Medical humanities is the integration of the humanistic fields into medical training,” Houk says. A large part of the work involves narrative medicine: reading and discussing fictional or true stories to build empathy for patients, connect physicians with one another, and encourage reflection on the physician-patient relationship and the profession itself.

AI can’t replace this: the leadership advantage that’s more human than ever | part one 
Teleios Collaborative Network (TCN); podcast hosted by Chris Comeaux with Dr. Andrea Hollingsworth; 9/23/26 
In Part One, Chris Comeaux welcomes Dr. Andrea Hollingsworth, founder and CEO of Hollingsworth Consulting and author of The Compassion Advantage: How Top Leaders Build More Humanizing Workplaces, for a timely conversation about compassion, vulnerability, and what it means to lead well in an increasingly AI-driven world. Andrea argues that while AI can solve problems, organize information, and simulate empathy, it cannot genuinely suffer with another person—and therefore cannot offer true compassion.  For healthcare and hospice leaders working alongside people experiencing stress, grief, uncertainty, and change, that distinction matters. 

Healthcare doesn’t need forward deployed engineers. It needs forward deployed operators. 
HIT Consultant; by Frederik Mueller; 9/22/26 
The forward deployed engineer model, embraced across enterprise technology, is built on a seductive assumption: that the gap between a technology’s potential and its adoption is primarily a technical gap. A missing integration. A misconfigured workflow. A feature not yet built. Fix the code, and the organization will follow. In most industries, that assumption is partially right. In healthcare, it is almost entirely wrong. In part, healthcare organizations contribute to the problem because most evaluate technology vendors the same flawed way. They audit the roadmap, assess the integrations, and negotiate the contract. They rarely ask enough how the vendor will be embedded in their operations after go-live, and what discipline that ongoing partnership requires. 

Rehearsing the end 
Reader; by Ali Hickerson; 9/23/26 
I'm covering all my bases,” says Rob, wearing a Cubs shirt, on the grounds of Rosehill Cemetery on July 18. After a doctor told him to get “his things in order” following his diagnosis of incurable bone marrow cancer last year, he began working with the Chicago Death Doula Collective, one of several resources he’s turned to for support. He’s one of the nine people picnicking at Rosehill on a Saturday afternoon, as part of a cemetery picnic series the Chicago Death Doula Collective has hosted there monthly this summer. ... Rob says he needed a community like Bianchi’s to deal with the reality of his cancer, ... After spending so much time in the cancer ward, Rob longed to hear stories of the people sitting around him—to humanize the topic, “laugh, cry, or make jokes about it,” and reflect on the preciousness of time.

Out-of-state group buys former east-side hospice property 
Business Record; by Kathy A. Bolten; 9/23/26 
An out-of-state substance abuse treatment company has acquired property on Des Moines’ east side that previously housed a hospice facility and administrative offices for EveryStep and Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa, Polk County real estate records show. WellBrook Recovery, doing business as 3000 Easton Blvd Propco LLC, paid Visiting Nurse Services of Iowa just over $5 million for the 9.3-acre parcel at 3000 Easton Blvd., records show. The nearly 5,000-square-foot, one-story facility originally operated as Bright Kavanagh House, which opened in 2007 and cost about $6 million to build. At the time, the 24-bed facility was the largest hospice in Iowa.

Nothing will work unless you do. ~ Maya Angelou