HPNA News

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) congratulates the following individuals on being selected as 2025 HPNA Award recipients.

As our advocacy team continues to analyze the 2024 election results and their potential impact on our policy priorities as an organization, we wanted to reach out to share what we currently know about the next Congress and administration and our plans for ensuring that the bipartisan issues on which we work will be prioritized in the coming years.

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) co-hosted the Team Conference for Hospice and Palliative Care on Saturday, September 28 in Baltimore, Maryland. The event was hosted by six organizations: HPNA, The Association of Professional Chaplains, The Physician Associates in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, The Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network, The Society of Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacists, and Transforming Chaplaincy.

Before adjourning until November, Congress passed a stopgap measure to fund the government at current levels until December 20. When they return after the election for a lame duck session, House and Senate leadership will need to prioritize passing a Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations bill. With legislators are home in their districts over the next few months, it is the perfect time to let them know how important it is to fund priorities such as palliative care research in an appropriations bill but also to make sure any end-of-year package includes language to extend COVID-19 telehealth flexibilities, including the option to conduct the hospice recertification face-to-face visit via telehealth, past the deadline of December 31.  For more information, read the letter that HPNA and partner organizations sent to House and Senate leadership last week.

On September 18, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 41-0 to pass H.R. 7623, the Telehealth Modernization Act. This bipartisan legislation would extend through 2026 certain flexibilities authorized during the public health emergency related to COVID-19, including the opportunity to use telehealth to conduct the required face-to-face (F2F) encounter under the Medicare hospice benefit. It also would allow rural health clinics and federal qualified health centers to serve as the distant site, the home of a beneficiary to serve as a distant site for all services, and all types of practitioners to furnish telehealth services, as determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Take your education on the go with HPNA’s new mobile-friendly platform, the HPNA Learning Center! All HPNA education materials, including webinars, virtual events, and certification prep courses, are now available in the HPNA Learning Center.

The Subsequent Call for Case Studies and Scholarly Works in Progress is specifically intended for professionals in training (scholars) or early career hospice and palliative care professionals to have an opportunity to present their peer-reviewed work at a nationally accredited conference in addition to having their work published in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

POLARIS Pediatric Pain is a new course that covers the evaluation and management of pain in pediatric patients in hospice and palliative care.

The principal call is open to all hospice and palliative care professionals across all settings and career stages including early career and professionals in training. Selected content is intended to enrich hospice and palliative care, education, science, and practice.

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Foundation is now accepting applications for the 2024 Emerging Leaders Award. This honor is designed to celebrate and encourage early-career hospice and palliative nurses.

Professional fee billing revenue is essential to sustain and grow interdisciplinary palliative care and hospice teams. While often perceived as burdensome and peripheral to patient care, billing and coding practices—when optimized—can help expand your team’s ability to provide high-quality care to the patients and caregivers you serve. Ineffective billing and coding can limit growth, and even threaten your team’s viability.

The Call for Applications for the 2025 HPNA/HPNF Board of Directors is now open. Candidates who have shown a significant commitment to the advancement of the art and science in the field of palliative nursing and/or philanthropy will be considered strong candidates.

As we celebrate National Nurses Week, May 6th – 12th, 64 members of the Nursing Community Coalition (NCC) urge Congress to support our current and future nurses, Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs), nurse leaders, boards of nursing, faculty, and scientists.

The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) has established a new Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) member category, available to licensed APRNs.

Christy Torkildson, Ph.D., RN, PHN, FPCN, HEC-C, has been appointed as the HPNA Liaison for the Pediatric Division of the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care (NCHPC).