Hospice Keys, 2 University Plaza Suite 100, Hackensack, NJ (2025)

12/15/2025

This podcast explores the urgency of really living, how our culture often avoids conversations about death (even though that doesn’t make it disappear), and how anger can become our “go-to” coping mechanism because it feels safer and more accessible than vulnerability. Another very impactful insights was about how silence creates a space for emotions to be shared without needing words.

Such a powerful reminder about presence, honesty, and connection.

🎧 Worth your time.

164 Embracing Life Through Loss: A Conversation with Andy Chaleff In this insightful episode of Hospice Explained (Episode 164), host Marie Betcher RN inter...

12/14/2025

I listened to this excellent Husch Blackwell podcast on hospice expansion and organizational structure - highly recommended for anyone involved in strategic growth.

The episode dives into how hospices should structure (or restructure) their organizations when expanding into new lines of business, with a strong focus on isolating legal risk so challenges in one segment don’t put the entire organization at risk. Super practical insights.

🎧 Worth the listen if expansion is on your radar.

Many hospices established their single entity corporate structure 40+ years ago and have left it largely untouched. But this too is worth a dust off especial...

12/13/2025

New research from confirms that healthcare is the industry most impacted by third-party breaches, accounting for 41.2% of all third-party incidents in 2024. Threat actors are increasingly turning trusted vendor relationships into gateways for disruption and data theft.

In hospice especially, where patient dignity and continuity of care are paramount, third-party risk management is now inseparable from quality, safety, and compliance.

New research has confirmed that healthcare is the industry most impacted by third-party breaches, accounting for 41.2% of all third-party breaches tracked Healthcare was the industry most impacted by third party breaches in 2024, accounting for 41% of incidents, according to a breach analysis by Bla...

12/12/2025

There’s a major hospice policy debate unfolding in New York which could set a precedent for other states.

Lawmakers are considering limiting hospice to nonprofit providers only, citing evidence that nonprofit hospices deliver higher-quality care.

But others argue that New York’s bigger problem is that too few people use hospice at all, often because of misconceptions, lack of referrals, and late engagement -- not because of provider availability.

This raises a big, national question:
Would nonprofit-only rules raise quality? Or, would it make it harder for patients to access hospice when they need it?

💬 Hospice professionals in ANY state: what’s your take?
Your experience matters. Policies like this often spread, and your insights could shape how we think about balancing quality, access, and mission-driven care.

Protecting and strengthening the integrity of hospice care is essential to ensuring that terminally ill New Yorkers receive compassionate, appropriate, and

12/11/2025

This conversation between a hospital-based palliative physician and chaplain conversation covers a lot of ground but I will highlight just two of the many interesting themes.

First, they talk about how all of us – doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, everyone – walk into a room carrying our own stories, assumptions, and biases. We don’t just see “what’s in front of us”; we see it through our past experiences, our training, our culture, and even our fears. That’s what shapes how we respond to families, how we talk about options, and how we interpret what patients are trying to tell us.

Second, they unpack the hierarchies inside the care team: physician above chaplain, ICU above palliative, certain specialties automatically getting more weight in the conversation than others. Even when no one says it out loud, people start to defer, hesitate, or stay quiet based on where they think they sit in that pecking order. And that impacts real decisions for real patients.

It’s a powerful reminder that if we want truly patient-centered hospice and palliative care, we have to look honestly at our own lenses and at the invisible ladders inside our teams.

Worth a listen and then serious reflection. How do these topics impact your organization? Care for your patients? Care for your loved ones?

In this week’s episode, we delve into the powerful documentary The Chaplain and The Doctor with two extraordinary guests: Betty Clark, the chaplain at the he...

12/10/2025

We plan for weddings, college, maybe even retirement… but how many of us really plan for the reality of aging?

Aging isn’t just about getting older on paper. It often means changing abilities, new safety concerns, and the possibility that living independently may not always be possible. When that happens, families are suddenly faced with big decisions and even bigger bills: home care, assisted living, nursing homes, memory care. The emotional toll is heavy, but so is the financial one.

This article asks a hard question we don’t like to sit with: Are Americans truly prepared for what aging actually looks like? Not just “Do we have a 401(k)?”, but: Have we talked about who will help if driving isn’t safe anymore? How we’ll manage if someone can’t bathe or cook on their own? Where the money will come from if long-term care is needed for months or years?

Most of us avoid these conversations until a crisis forces our hand. By then, options can be limited, and the stress on families can be overwhelming.

Maybe the better time to talk about aging is before something happens.
https://tinyurl.com/2h7tb9wn

There are some universal challenges that all people face with aging, and there are steps everyone can take to prepare. A geriatrician explains them.

12/09/2025

Families, clinical teams, and hospice staff already carry so much at the end of life.

But what happens when there’s no advance directive, big decisions need to be made quickly, and now AI is in the mix?

My new blog on -Keys explores how data and AI might help us understand options and support conversations without letting an algorithm become the one making the decision. It also looks at the ethical questions this raises for clinicians, administrators, and compliance leaders in hospice and healthcare.

It doesn’t give easy answers… but it does leave us with some important questions to sit with.

👉 Read the full post: https://tinyurl.com/4cuukxbp

End-of-life decisions are some of the hardest moments any family, clinician, or hospice team will ever face. Even when a patient has had candid conversations with loved ones, the reality of decline can feel different than anything imagined. When there is no advance directive or clear documentation o...

12/08/2025

“How would you rate your pain on a scale of 0–10?”

For hospice patients, this simple question can be surprisingly difficult to answer. Pain is subjective, shaped by emotions, memory, fatigue, medications, and even fear - especially at the end of life.

In this blog, we explore why pain scoring is so complex in hospice care, why numbers alone aren’t enough, and how compassionate interpretation leads to better comfort for patients and families.

👉 Read the full blog here: https://tinyurl.com/4e6m9sn9

Pain assessment is foundational to clinical care, but nowhere is it more central - or more urgent - than in hospice. The familiar questions “How much pain are you in right now?” and “Is it better or worse than last week?” are routine. Yet, they are often quite difficult to answer and often y...

12/07/2025

This YouTube video is definitely marketing for a law firm but the message is really on point if you’ve ever been pushed hard by a software vendor to migrate to their cloud version.

The video breaks down:
- Common tactics vendors use to pressure you into cloud migration
- Why you don’t have to jump just because support is “ending soon”
- Practical options if staying on-prem (for now) is better for your business

I’ve felt that “upgrade now or else” pressure more than once, so this really definitely resonated with me. If you’re dealing (or have dealt) with forced cloud migration or SaaS contract renewals, this is worth 10 minutes of your time.

🎥 Watch here: https://tinyurl.com/bddd97af

ERP vendors are notorious for creating a false sense of urgency with arbitrary support deadlines, promises of expanded functionality, and artificial intellig...

12/06/2025

VITAS Healthcare has begun sending data breach notifications after an attacker reportedly compromised a vendor’s account and used it to access some VITAS systems and patient information.

In healthcare, it's not enough to secure your network. Your patients’ privacy also depends on how well your vendors and partners secure theirs. In hospice care especially, patients and families are in a vulnerable moment. They deserve confidence that:
- Vendor accounts are tightly controlled and monitored
- Third-party access to PHI is limited to what’s truly necessary
- Business associates are being assessed, questioned, and held to strong security standards

A single compromised vendor account can become the front door into your environment. Third-party risk isn’t a side issue. It’s part of your core duty to protect patients, data, and trust.

If your organization hasn’t recently reviewed its vendor risk program, this is your wake-up call!

Strauss Borrelli PLLC, a leading data breach law firm, is investigating VITAS Hospice Services, LLC (“VITAS”) regarding its recent data breach.

12/05/2025

Families caring for someone with advanced dementia are often told there is “no other option” than more medications. This story of a son, his dad, and a long wait for long-term care shines a light on what that really looks like in practice: antipsychotics used as chemical restraints in places not designed for people living with dementia.

The article raises hard but important questions for anyone who cares about aging, hospice, and dementia care:

Why are “responsive behaviors” like wandering or calling out treated as problems to be medicated instead of communication to be understood?

How did we get to a place where up to a third of residents in some long-term care homes receive antipsychotics without a psychosis diagnosis?

What would it look like to invest in dementia-friendly environments, adequate staffing, and non-pharmacologic supports instead of defaulting to sedation?

On a daily basis, hospice and aging-care providers see that older adults with dementia deserve comfort, dignity, human touch and meaningful connection - not to be quieted for the convenience of an overstretched system.

Read this story and consider sharing it with others who care about changing how we treat people living with dementia: https://tinyurl.com/39pmx2ds

When Jon Guenter finally took his dad, who has advanced dementia, to the hospital a year and a half ago, he was at his “wits end.” Guenter said he couldn't keep up with his dad's caregiving routine, which had grown more intense over the span of...

12/04/2025

I read this The Wall Street Journal story about a couple who thought they had planned the perfect retirement - until Alzheimer’s changed everything.

Reading the article is a stark reminder that retirement planning isn’t just about money, travel, and hobbies. It’s about:

- Preparing for the possibility of serious illness or cognitive decline
- Talking honestly about who will care, and how
- Making sure the caregiver is supported emotionally and financially, not just the person who is ill

If your loved one experiences cognitive decline, you’re still sharing a home, but you can’t really share decisions, stories, or even little jokes in the same way. The partner you once planned the future with is slowly slipping away, and you’re left holding both the practical responsibilities and the emotional weight.
If you’ve walked this path - or are walking it now - you’re not alone. 💔💚

Here’s the article if you want to read it or share it as a way to start a conversation with someone you trust: https://tinyurl.com/4uweduu6

A former Wall Street Journal retirement columnist shares the hard lessons he had to learn about life after work.

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