NHPCO Introduces My Hospice Campaign to Highlight Value of Hospice Care

At their annual Management and Leadership Conference, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization today launched a new advocacy campaign to reinforce the value of the Medicare hospice benefit among policy and healthcare decision makers to foster a policy environment that will support patient access to high quality, comprehensive hospice and palliative care.

As Medicare’s first coordinated care model, hospice is one of the few sectors that demonstrates how healthcare can – and should – work at its best for its patients, offering a successful model for expanding access to person-centered, integrated care to all patients with serious, advanced and life-limiting illness, and their caregivers.

The campaign, My Hospice, aims to demonstrate what hospice means to each unique individual and family it serves. Through the My Hospice campaign, NHPCO will highlight how critically important hospice and palliative care are to Americans across the country, while educating policymakers that hospice is an integrated care program that works and a high-quality benefit that matters.

“Hospice truly is Medicare’s first coordinated care model – and it works,” said Edo Banach, President & CEO of NHPCO. “In an increasingly fragmented and broken healthcare system, hospice is one of the few sectors that demonstrates how healthcare can – and should – work at its best. Through My Hospice, we will demonstrate how our coordinated and person-led approach to care protects choice and access to individualized services based on a person’s unique care needs and wishes. It is a system that works for patients, families and the Medicare program, alike.”

The My Hospice campaign is founded on three main principles:

• Hospice is an integrated care program that works.
• Patients and families must continue to have timely access to high quality, comprehensive hospice care.
• Future health reforms should build upon the successful hospice model by expanding access to comprehensive, coordinated care and person- and family-centered care to all patients with serious, advanced and life-limiting illness.

To patients, My Hospice represents their choice to receive the care that they want, while to family members and caregivers, it means joy, purpose, calling, privilege, passion, teamwork, mission, comfort and support. Through the My Hospice campaign, NHPCO will be bringing together the hospice community to share experiences to help policymakers, healthcare influencers and others better understand the tremendous benefits of hospice care.

Continued Banach: “We are not just an industry - we are about person and family-centered care that honors, uplifts and supports. Now is the time to come together to protect hospice as we know and love it today, and to make sure more people get the high-quality care that we offer, earlier.”

To learn more about the My Hospice campaign, please visit MyHospiceCampaign.org.