CMS Website: SSVI Index; FY 2027 Final SSVI Overview; FY 2027 Final Hospice Wage Index
CMS website; compiled by Judi Lund Person; retrieved from the Internet 8/3/26 
Downloads on CMS website that provide additional information for the final rule; zip files [standard delivery format]

• Service and Spending Variation Index (SSVI): Data for every hospice in the country for SSVI calculations, both utilization and non-hospice spending metrics. The data provided is for both FY 2024 and FY 2025.
• FY 2027 Final SSVI Overview:  An overview of the Service and Spending Variability Index (SSVI), now included in the FY 2027 Final rule.
• FY 2027 Final Hospice Wage Index:  Wage index values for every county in the country.

Homemakers create quilts for hospice patients
The Kentucky Standard, Nelson County, KY; by Katelyn Norris;8/1/26 
Nelson County Homemakers continue to find new way to serve their community. Earlier this week nearly two dozen quilts made by its members were donated toward local hospice patients. On Monday, the quilts were displayed at the Nelson County Extension Office as the local Homemakers donated them to the Hospice of Nelson County. The quilts were sewn, crocheted and knitted with love and care by the Homemakers. Each quilt has a tag denoting it was created by members of the group. ... Jaime Crockett [Manager of Clinical Services with Hospice of Nelson County] said she wants this moment to encourage other local quilters, crocheters and knitters to donate their own new, handmade blankets for those in hospice care.

Tuesday's Tools: "Search" tool
Hospice & Palliative Care Today; by Joy Berger; 8/3/26
Calling all readers to our new Tuesday series. Each week, explore a tool included in your free subscription that helps you use our news to improve the care you provide. Do you know you can easily search our now 13,000+ posts (since Jan 1, 2024) for any topic, name, or key word? Simply ...

• Go to our homepage, www.hospicepalliativecaretoday.com 
• Click on LOGIN (menu tab)
  
• Enter the email you used to register
• If you don't remember your password, follow the prompts to reset it
• Go to the "Search articles" box to type in your keyword; press "Enter"
• This list populates entries that link you to the original source; the "published" date for HPCT can be found in our "ARCHIVES" tool
• Check back next Tuesday for another tool

One clinician, every conversation: Palliative care delivery by solo APRN hospitalists in Critical Access Hospitals
Journal of Hospice & Palliative Nursing; by Melissa Skoff; 7/26
Advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) who practice as solo hospitalists in critical access hospitals are often underrecognized in their role in providing palliative and end-of-life care. This article describes the full scope of the solo APRN hospitalist in a critical access hospital setting with close attention to how complex patient demands contribute to the challenges in providing high-quality end-of-life communications. This article examines clinical, educational, and ethical dimensions of this work, and presents a case example that illustrates how these pressures present during a shift. Strategies to strengthen rural palliative care capacity are discussed, including tele-palliative care, remote ethics support, and APRN-centered education. As rural workforce shortages persist and continue to rise, alongside rising patient acuity, naming and addressing these structural gaps is essential in improving quality of care and protecting the well-being of a solo APRN hospitalist.

[Canada] Listening to young people on childhood death: a youth-focused participatory approach to children's palliative and end-of-life research and policymaking 
Children & Society; by Sydney Campbell, Nika Rovensky, Ryan Kent, Lauren Delaney, Franco A. Carnevale, Mary Ellen Macdonald; 6/23/26 
Conclusion: Our study is one of the first to investigate the perspectives of young people in Canada regarding children's palliative and end-of-life (P-EOL) care, and the first in Canada to employ a participatory approach with young people in research about childhood death and dying. ... To date, the lessons we have learned can help researchers from diverse contexts aiming to carry out similar projects related to children's P-EOL care, based in the belief that the only way to truly shift current practices that overlook young people's voices and engagements as meaningful is through continuous advocacy, development, and application of engagement practices in all matters affecting young people.

NY’s MAiD law: updates that medical providers and facilities should know 
JD Supra; by Rivkin Radler, LLD - Attorneys at Law; 7/31/26
As discussed in our prior publication, Medical Aid in Dying Is Now Legal in NY, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID) on February 6, 2026. Since then, the New York State Department of Health (DOH) has issued a form (DOH-5847) for patients to request MAID, frequently asked questions (FAQs), educational materials, guidance, and proposed reporting regulations. Together, these materials provide important directions for providers and facilities as they prepare for the law’s August 5, 2026, effective date.

• Requesting MAID ...
• Establishing Patient Eligibility ...
• Required Reporting to NYS DOH ...
• Insurance Considerations ...
• Participation Decisions, Policies, and Operational Readiness ...

National Alliance for Care at Home responds to FY 2027 Hospice Final Rule
National Alliance for Care at Home, Alexandria, VA; Press Release; 7/30/26
The National Alliance for Care at Home (the Alliance) today responded to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) fiscal year (FY) 2027 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update final rule, which finalizes payment and regulatory changes under the Medicare hospice benefit.
CMS finalized a 2.3% payment update to the Medicare hospice benefit, which continues to fall short of the rising labor and supply costs required to deliver high-quality hospice care. As demand for hospice services continues to grow, payment updates must more accurately reflect providers’ costs so that access to these essential services does not decline. 
“CMS’s 2.3% payment update does not reflect the true cost of delivering hospice care and adds further strain to providers who are already stretched thin,” said Jennifer Sheets, CEO of the Alliance. “Compounding that pressure is a Service and Spending Variation Index built on a fundamentally flawed methodology that penalizes legitimate providers for non-hospice claims they have no visibility into nor control over, with no process to review or correct the data before it is made public. This is not a sound approach to program integrity. An inadequate payment update combined with an unreliable oversight tool creates a serious and growing burden for legitimate providers working to serve their communities.”

In the near future, AI is gonna tell a woman that she is wrong and to calm down. And that, my friends, will be the end of AI!