While billing has not historically captured the true value of palliative care in our health care system, it remains an important component of program financing—and billing opportunities have improved over time. The savvy palliative care program leader will optimize their billing practices for program growth and sustainability, but understanding how to navigate billing complexity is key. This hands-on preconference workshop will examine the fundamentals of billing and coding, then dive into strategies to help programs meet productivity benchmarks and leverage new Medicare billing opportunities.
Part 1: Fundamentals of Medical Decision Making (MDM) and Time-Based Billing
- An overview of MDM billing, including when and how it should be applied. We’ll discuss the importance of accurately valuing the work palliative care teams do, with a focus on avoiding underbilling.
- An introduction to time-based billing: when it is appropriate and what qualifies as billable time. We will clarify how to document and account for time in patient care to maximize revenue without compromising integrity.
Part 2: Productivity, RVU Targets, and Maximizing Revenue
- An exploration of reasonable productivity and Relative Value Unit (RVU) targets, highlighting how different billing strategies can help meet these goals. We’ll discuss which practices are most effective for hitting targets in a sustainable way.
- A review of recent changes and opportunities for primary care to capture revenue from previously underutilized activities such as principal illness navigation (PIN), chronic care management (CCM), community health integration (CHI), principal care management (PCM), and caregiver training. We’ll cover how to incorporate these into practice and the potential impact on overall revenue
Learning Outcomes
- State how recent changes in Medicare billing and coding apply to the work of palliative care teams.
- Define MDM billing and time-based billing.
- Compare revenue and productivity values for various palliative care billing strategies.
Duke Health
University of Michigan
Leading palliative care teams requires confident communication skills and an ability to build influence and collaborative relationships across your organization. Effective leaders must navigate the challenges of shifting priorities, financial uncertainty, team conflict, and potential resistance with a constructive approach. Maintaining engagement, articulating a clear vision, sustaining patience, and projecting confidence can often feel like a delicate balancing act—and these pressures can contribute to burnout.
This interactive workshop will use realistic scenarios, collaborative learning, and practical frameworks to practice skills for responding in these common situations. Together, we will explore strategies for preparing to meet with financial partners, fostering team engagement, delivering and receiving feedback, navigating organizational politics, and understanding the nuances of your leadership role. Join us to enhance your leadership capabilities and build resilience in your practice.
Learning Outcomes
- Discuss the complexities of organizational dynamics and strategies to effectively navigate these dynamics to the benefit of palliative care teams and patients.
- Identify practical techniques to navigate and resolve team conflicts to promote a collaborative team environment.
- Execute conversations with organizational leadership about palliative care program performance and resources.
Hackensack Meridian Health – Hackensack UMC
Spragens & Gualtieri-Reed
MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center
Providence
University Medical Center, New Orleans LA
Everent Health/Hosparus Health
Leaderly Consultants
The CAPC Health Equity Accelerator (Accelerator) combines a half-day workshop, extensive peer convening, and a year of mentoring on how to design and implement health equity initiatives for patients with serious illness. Developed with generous support from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Accelerator is designed to empower health equity champions with case examples, best practices, and expert guidance from seasoned health equity leaders. In this workshop, participants will learn best practices for planning, implementing, and monitoring the impact of a health equity quality improvement project—including how to garner needed resources. A range of health equity experts from a variety of care settings and organizations will provide their perspectives and lessons learned from their experiences developing sustainable health equity initiatives. Attendees will leave the event with an action plan to advance equity and improve care for marginalized patient populations with serious illness. Following the workshop, attendees will participate in a year-long cohort of peer equity champions working to implement their initiatives.
The program includes:
- Virtual Office Hours, small-group check-ins with an assigned health equity faculty mentor, occurring every two months to discuss progress and/or obstacles in implementing health equity initiatives
- Three post-workshop large-group virtual convenings to highlight the evolving work being led by the cohort
- Opt-in cohort directory to facilitate peer-to-peer communication throughout the year
- Participant survey upon completion of the year-long program to capture information about progress of health equity initiatives, satisfaction with/usefulness of the Accelerator, and lessons learned to share with other health equity leaders
Note: Participation in this pre-conference workshop assumes that attendees take part in the year-long virtual program that follows.
Learning Outcomes
- Articulate the key concepts and principles of health equity in the context of serious illness.
- Identify best practices for securing necessary resources for health equity quality improvement projects, including funding, partnerships, and community engagement strategies.
- Develop a personalized action plan aimed at advancing local health equity initiatives, including specific goals, strategies, and measurable outcomes.
NYC Health + Hospitals
Massachusetts General Hospital
Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC)
Seattle Children's Hospital
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley - Nursing
University of Pennsylvania, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Financial incentives drive behavior across the health system. Fee-for-service incentives can drive overuse and overtreatment (the more procedures you do the more money you keep). Capitation or value-based incentives can drive undertreatment and reduce access to quality care (the less money you spend, the more you keep). More than three-quarters of U.S. hospices, home care agencies, and nursing homes are now for-profit, a radical change that occurred in just the last few decades. A majority of Medicare beneficiaries are now enrolled in Medicare Advantage, largely administered by for-profit insurers. For patients with serious illness and their families, the consequences can include lack of access to needed care and services, confusing bureaucracy, and disempowerment. How can today’s health care leaders navigate financial pressures while being effective advocates for our patients? What levers exist to change the parameters for how we deliver care to people with serious illness, and what do the experts see on the horizon? CAPC’s founding director, Dr. Diane Meier, and Dr. Sachin Jain, CEO of nonprofit SCAN Health Plan, will discuss their perspectives on how to maintain passion, effectiveness, and the capacity to make a difference for patients and caregivers in a challenging financial environment.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the impact of reimbursement or financing models on health care delivery in the U.S.
- Identify 3 trends in the care of people with serious illness that result from health care payment models.
- Explain the role of health care leaders in ensuring high-quality care in a complex financial landscape.
SCAN Group and SCAN Health Plan
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Co-director, Patty and Jay Baker National Palliative Care Center
Professor, Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine
Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Palliative care teams across all settings face high demand that exceeds their capacity and available resources. This session will explore the leadership practices necessary to ensure delivery of high-quality care while operating within resource constraints. Participants will explore practical approaches to managing high demand, balancing practical service design tradeoffs with long-term growth strategies for the palliative care team.
Learning Outcomes
- List the available strategies for palliative care programs to cope with high demand.
- Identify opportunities to enhance palliative care program productivity while maintaining high-quality care standards.
- Conduct a strategic review of your program’s eligibility criteria to ensure that resources are allocated efficiently and effectively.
Alameda Health System
University Medical Center, New Orleans LA
Effective relationships with referrers are an essential ingredient for productive, high-quality palliative care teams. This session will delve into the key components of the palliative care consultant relationship, providing attendees with valuable insights and techniques to enhance collaboration with referrers. Presenters will discuss issues ranging from identifying appropriate palliative care patients to referrer communication strategies.
Learning Outcomes
- Review effective communication with referrers, including clarification of palliative care’s role and scope, and clinical communication about patient needs.
- Identify clinical collaboration practices that foster high-quality care for patients with serious illness.
- Explore strategies for systematic referrals, ensuring that appropriate patients are identified and referred to palliative care in a timely manner.
Baylor Scott & White Health
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
Palliative care programs often struggle to sustain themselves through fee-for-service billing alone, leading to the perception that they are cost centers rather than value drivers within their organizations. In this session, participants will learn how to reframe their palliative care services as a smart value investment, making the case for long-term sustainability and program growth. The session will explore palliative care impact in the context of organizational finances, reputation, quality measures, and risk mitigation.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify 3 distinct ways palliative care services provide financial and nonfinancial value to hospitals, home health or hospice agencies, and payer organizations.
- Develop a pitch to leadership that incorporates both financial and nonfinancial value statements.
- Demonstrate how palliative care services address key organizational “pain points” while providing high-quality patient care.
Bluegrass Care Navigators
University of Maryland School of Pharmacy
When resources are tight, the workforce is scarce, or coverage areas are broad, designing palliative care services presents a unique challenge. However, resourceful palliative care leaders are breaking down boundaries to meet the need. This session will focus on innovative models of care delivery in challenging environments, leveraging telehealth, forging strategic partnerships, and redeploying the workforce to advance equitable access to care. Presenters will share inspiring success stories and practical insights on crafting high-quality services that meet patient and family needs while integrating with community resources.
Learning Outcomes
- Outline methods for aligning program design with patient need and resource capacity in low-resource environments.
- Describe three techniques to close palliative care service gaps and deliver equitable care to all patients.
Southcentral Foundation
Associate Professor LAT, Division of Palliative Medicine (Department of Internal Medicine)
University of New Mexico
University of Colorado School of Medicine
Palliative care teams face the dual challenge of delivering high-quality care while meeting organizational productivity requirements, which are often not aligned with the needs of seriously ill patients and with palliative care workflows. Team composition, patient population, and service design are all variables that can confound the question of “optimal” productivity. The leader’s challenge is to demonstrate effective use of program resources while advocating for the best care for patients. This session addresses the complexities in balancing efficiency with the unique needs of highly complex patients.
Learning Outcomes
- Review national data and trends in productivity across different care settings to identify benchmarks and best practices.
- Discuss the productivity pressures faced by palliative care teams and how these pressures impact the quality of care and team dynamics.
- Identify effective strategies for organizing team workflows to enhance efficiency without compromising care quality.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Christine S. Ritchie Endowed Chair in Palliative Care Leadership
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
As health care organizations seek to control costs and improve efficiency, palliative care teams are facing increasing pressure to justify the value of interprofessional care. The reliance on billable provider services and the growing emphasis on cost cutting often threaten to diminish the role of specialized professionals in the care of patients with serious illness. This session will make the case that the unique and complex needs of such patients and their families necessitate an interprofessional team and will explore strategies to secure needed staffing resources.
Learning Outcomes
- Summarize the literature highlighting the benefits of palliative care provided by an interprofessional team.
- Discuss an effective financial and quality case for an interprofessional palliative care team.
Bluegrass Care Navigators
Hackensack Meridian Health – Hackensack UMC
Providence
Kaiser Permanente
Philanthropy should not serve as the financial foundation for a palliative care program, but it can play a critical role in bridging funding gaps and supporting special initiatives. In this session, experienced program leaders will share their insights on leveraging philanthropic support from individual donors and foundations. Attendees will learn how to craft compelling funding proposals, demonstrate the tangible impact of philanthropy, and build long-term relationships with grant makers and donors.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify the essential components of a palliative care funding proposal.
- Analyze effective uses for philanthropic funding.
- Explain effective stewardship of philanthropic funding relationships to ensure sustained donor or foundation engagement.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Co-director, Patty and Jay Baker National Palliative Care Center
Professor, Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine
Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
For many in health care, “work-life balance” can feel unattainable. This session will focus on practical strategies for finding and sustaining joy in your work over time. Drawing on the experiences of veteran palliative care professionals, participants will explore the root causes of burnout and learn effective strategies for building a workplace culture that is grounded in wellness and sustainability—a prerequisite for fostering healthy teams.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify key factors that lead to fatigue and burnout.
- List practices and strategies that enhance workplace well-being and job satisfaction.
- Explain the vital connection between personal sustainability and the overall health of your team.
Central Health
The US Oncology Network
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Center to Advance Palliative Care
For people living with serious illness, the stakes of inequitable care are high. Access to treatments and services, the quality of clinician communication, and caregiver availability are all areas in which we currently see disparities based on a patient’s circumstances—and these disparities result in avoidable suffering. Dr. Kimberly Curseen will share effective strategies that health equity champions can employ at multiple levels to achieve care improvements: as individual health professionals, as clinical team leaders, and within health care organizations. Her talk will share insights on program design considerations using an equity lens as well as proven strategies to provide equitable care to each and every patient living with a serious illness.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe key inequities in access and quality of care for people with serious illness.
- List 3 evidence-based strategies for clinical teams to improve equitable care.
- Identify 2 opportunities for health equity champions and leaders to incorporate at the onset of program design.
Director, Outpatient Supportive Care, Emory Palliative Care Center
Director, Winship Palliative Care, Emory University
Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
This session focuses on the unique challenges women face in leadership roles across various disciplines and in different types of health care organizations. Seasoned female palliative care leaders will explore common obstacles such as microaggressions, relationship management, and feelings of isolation. The workshop will equip attendees with essential leadership skills and practical strategies to create psychologically safe work environments.
Learning Outcomes
- Discuss common challenges specific to women in palliative care leadership roles.
- Identify core skills to navigate leadership challenges for women in palliative care.
- Name useful resources for women in leadership to promote well-being in the workplace.
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai New York
Baylor Scott & White Health
University Medical Center, New Orleans LA
Doctor in the Family
Central Health
In palliative care, the best patient outcomes are achieved when an interprofessional team has healthy communication and collaboration practices. When dysfunction arises, it can impact both team well-being and patient care. This session will delve into the characteristics of high-functioning teams, examining how they collaborate, how they communicate with patients, caregivers, referrers, organizational leaders, and one another, and the processes that consistently enable them to meet the needs of their constituents.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify the common characteristics of high-functioning teams and state their significance in palliative care.
- List 3 practices that palliative care leaders can employ to assess and improve team dynamics.
Bellevue Hospital / NYU
University of Pennsylvania Health System
Palliative care programs often struggle to sustain themselves through fee-for-service billing alone, leading to the perception that they are cost centers rather than value drivers within their organizations. In this session, participants will learn how to reframe their palliative care services as a smart value investment, making the case for long-term sustainability and program growth. The session will explore palliative care impact in the context of organizational finances, reputation, quality measures, and risk mitigation.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify 3 distinct ways palliative care services provide financial and nonfinancial value to hospitals, home health or hospice agencies, and payer organizations.
- Develop a pitch to leadership that incorporates both financial and nonfinancial value statements.
- Demonstrate how palliative care services address key organizational “pain points” while providing high-quality patient care.
Bluegrass Care Navigators
MedStar Health
Associate Professor
University of Maryland School of Pharmacy
Palliative care teams face the dual challenge of delivering high-quality care while meeting organizational productivity requirements, which are often not aligned with the needs of seriously ill patients and with palliative care workflows. Team composition, patient population, and service design are all variables that can confound the question of “optimal” productivity. The leader’s challenge is to demonstrate effective use of program resources while advocating for the best care for patients. This session addresses the complexities in balancing efficiency with the unique needs of highly complex patients.
Learning Outcomes
- Review national data and trends in productivity across different care settings to identify benchmarks and best practices.
- Discuss the productivity pressures faced by palliative care teams and how these pressures impact the quality of care and team dynamics.
- Identify effective strategies for organizing team workflows to enhance efficiency without compromising care quality.
Presbyterian Healthcare Services
Christine S. Ritchie Endowed Chair in Palliative Care Leadership
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
Transitioning into a leadership role in a palliative care program can be overwhelming without training in the basics of managing a team and a budget. This session will guide new leaders through the process of creating a business plan and a financial road map aimed at achieving their program’s goals. Presenters will discuss the importance of engaging organizational partners to gather data and test ideas for service design in creating a business plan for the launch or expansion of services.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the relationship between service and staffing design, and a palliative care program’s business plan.
- List common challenges and pitfalls to avoid when business planning.
- Discuss effective methods for utilizing data to demonstrate the program’s value and justify funding for strategic initiatives.
Spragens & Gualtieri-Reed
Presbyterian Healthcare Services
The landscape of payment for community-based palliative care is diverse and rapidly evolving. With a range of options, including Medicare Advantage contracts, emerging Medicaid benefits, private payer innovations, and clinical collaborations, there are new avenues for generating sustainable revenue. However, experiences with these reimbursement models have varied significantly across organizations. In this session, participants will gain valuable insights and advice from both payer and provider perspectives on navigating the complexities of reimbursement for community-based palliative care.
Learning Outcomes
- Summarize the current reimbursement landscape for community-based palliative care and the various payment models available.
- Describe effective strategies and potential challenges in securing reimbursement.
- Discuss best practices for collaborating with payers and leveraging innovative payment models to enhance service delivery.
CareConnect
Everent Health/Hosparus Health
Educating all clinicians in communication and symptom management skills is an essential serious illness strategy for health care organizations aiming to provide comprehensive care. This session provides an opportunity to learn from seasoned experts who have collaborated with health systems, hospitals, and community organizations nationwide to roll out effective education strategies for clinicians across various disciplines. Presenters will highlight what works and what doesn’t when implementing education initiatives. Attendees will gain practical tips for executing a successful training program and explore criteria for evaluating different education offerings.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the different types of palliative care education programs available for nonpalliative care clinicians.
- List five effective strategies to engage leadership and clinicians in a palliative care education initiative.
Moffitt Cancer Center
Kaiser Permanente
Delivering difficult feedback or serious news to colleagues is hardly enjoyable, yet these conversations are essential for fostering healthy teamwork and professional relationships. In this interactive session, palliative care leaders will learn techniques for navigating challenging conversations respectfully and effectively. Participants will leave with strategies to improve communication, build trust, and enhance collaboration within their teams.
Learning Outcomes
- Categorize the types of difficult conversations that commonly occur between colleagues.
- Demonstrate how to use empathy as a key tactic to minimize negative reactions and facilitate productive communication.
- Apply best practices for preparing for, initiating, and navigating challenging conversations in a constructive manner.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Boston College
Clinicians have difficult jobs, often dealing with sadness, anger, frustration, moral distress, conflict, and compassion fatigue. Join us for an informal, facilitated, small-group discussion where you can share common reactions to your demanding work and coping strategies that can diminish the consequences of this stress. We are excited to offer this typically virtual CAPC experience in person at Seminar. Space is limited to 20 people per debriefing session.
Wellness Debriefings do not offer continuing education credits.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Health professionals know that caregivers are the backbone of U.S. health care for people with serious illness. Unpaid and often unsupported, family caregivers deserve better. Dr. Allison Applebaum is a clinical psychologist, author of Stand By Me: A Guide to Navigating Modern, Meaningful Caregiving, and the founding director of the Caregivers Clinic at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In this keynote presentation, Dr. Applebaum will synthesize the landscape of caregiving in the U.S. today and highlight innovative, sustainable models for caregiver support services.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe national trends in caregiving.
- Summarize the evidence base on the impact of effective caregiver support.
- List actions that palliative care leaders from all organization types can take to increase support for family/unpaid caregivers.
Achieving goal-aligned care for patients with serious illness is a shared objective in palliative care. Yet, recent debates among field leaders have highlighted mixed results on the efficacy of advance care planning (ACP) in published literature. This session invites participants to explore the sometimes conflicting messages from health care systems and literature regarding ACP and to identify key areas of focus to ensure goal-concordant care.
Learning Outcomes
- Summarize the literature on ACP to understand the roots of the ongoing debate surrounding its effectiveness.
- Define the various elements that are encompassed by ACP, including tools like Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) and the process of identifying a health care proxy.
- Discuss the emphasis of ACP to highlight the importance of developing a shared understanding of patients’ goals and priorities, rather than solely focusing on documentation.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Co-director, Patty and Jay Baker National Palliative Care Center Professor, Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine
Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Whether you’re considering launching a collaborative service model with the outpatient heart clinic or looking to find new community-based service provider partners to meet patients’ social needs, palliative care teams often need to establish collaborative working relationships. This session will discuss how to evaluate the “right” partners, assess the need for collaboration, refine partnership operations over time, and facilitate strong working relationships with partners and collaborators.
Learning Outcomes
- List core principles for identifying the “right” partner.
- Identify strategies for developing and evolving a strong, effective partnership.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)
Deciding what to measure, and what to do with your program data, can be complicated. Different audiences—payers, organization leaders, and program leaders—need data for different purposes. In this session, speakers will explore recommended structure, process, and outcome measures for the hospital-based palliative care program. Attendees will learn how to use program data for both quality improvement and demonstrating the value of the program.
Learning Outcomes
- Review data types, sources, and uses that may help program leaders make the case to grow and sustain the program.
- Discuss how to use data to demonstrate the value of the palliative care service to your organization, your referrers, and financial partners.
North Shore University Hospital
Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine
Northwell
Mount Carmel Health
In this session, we will explore the critical intersection of palliative care and emergency medicine, particularly in the context of serving vulnerable, minoritized racial and ethnic communities. The emergency department acts as a vital health care resource in the U.S., often functioning as a safety net. For patients with serious illness, timely access to palliative care in the ED can significantly impact the trajectory of care, yet the fast-paced and protocol-driven culture of emergency departments can present challenges for clinical collaboration with palliative care. Join us for an in-depth examination of how palliative care in the ED has evolved through and after the pandemic. Presenters will cover the elements of service design, including strategic planning, patient identification, resource allocation, documentation and billing considerations, and consult etiquette in the ED.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe obstacles and opportunities for palliative care delivery to patients in the ED.
- Identify 3 components of a successful emergency medicine/palliative care collaboration.
Lehigh Valley Health Network
John Peter Smith Hospital
Federal health policy significantly impacts various aspects of palliative care, including Medicare payment structures, alternative payment models, hospice oversight, clinical workforce initiatives, research investments, and caregiver support. This session will provide attendees with the latest updates from Capitol Hill and Medicare and explore potential changes that would affect palliative care services and families facing serious illness.
Learning Outcomes
- Summarize the current federal policy landscape that affects palliative care practices.
- Analyze potential changes to federal health policy that would challenge or facilitate palliative care delivery.
University of Michigan
Center to Advance Palliative Care
In this session, we will explore an often-overlooked aspect of health care: spiritual care. A diagnosis of a serious illness can deeply affect a patient’s sense of self and their ability to cope with the associated suffering, yet spiritual and existential needs are frequently neglected in routine care. Presenters will explain how an interdisciplinary team approach that includes spiritual care can help address patients’ needs, improve their overall quality of life, and ensure more compassionate and comprehensive care.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the spiritual, existential, and emotional concepts that affect patients with serious illness and their families.
- Summarize how to use spiritual assessments for documentation, setting care goals, and creating personalized spiritual care plans.
- Delineate the relationship of spiritual care to health equity.
Bluegrass Care Navigators
Doctor in the Family
With approximately 200 million people in the U.S. affected by trauma, many of whom are also living with a serious illness, it is essential for palliative care clinicians to integrate trauma-informed care principles into their practice. This session will explore how adopting a trauma-informed lens can advance high-quality, equitable patient care, strengthen clinician-patient relationships, and improve quality of life.
Learning Outcomes
- Define the concepts of trauma-informed care and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
- Summarize the evidence base on the impact of trauma, and the outcomes of trauma-informed health care.
- Identify practical tools and strategies to implement trauma-informed care in palliative care conversations and care plans.
Boston College
Join us for an engaging session featuring authors of the innovative projects that earned Special Recognition at the 2025 CAPC National Seminar poster session for their groundbreaking strategies, creative use of resources, and high-impact outcomes. Attendees will hear concise presentations from the project authors, have the opportunity to ask questions about how the featured projects and interventions function, and take part in an inspiring discussion about innovation in the field of palliative care.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify success factors behind 3 innovative palliative care projects.
- Explore strategies for designing palliative care quality improvement projects that enhance care quality and program efficiency.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Clinicians have difficult jobs, often dealing with sadness, anger, frustration, moral distress, conflict, and compassion fatigue. Join us for an informal, facilitated, small-group discussion where you can share common reactions to your demanding work and coping strategies that can diminish the consequences of this stress. We are excited to offer this typically virtual CAPC experience in person at Seminar. Space is limited to 20 people per debriefing session.
Wellness Debriefings do not offer continuing education credits.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Clinicians have difficult jobs, often dealing with sadness, anger, frustration, moral distress, conflict, and compassion fatigue. Join us for an informal, facilitated, small-group discussion where you can share common reactions to your demanding work and coping strategies that can diminish the consequences of this stress. We are excited to offer this typically virtual CAPC experience in person at Seminar. Space is limited to 20 people per debriefing session.
Wellness Debriefings do not offer continuing education credits.
Central Health
Connect with nationally recognized Seminar faculty, and your peers, for deep-dive Q&A. Bring your questions about the day’s sessions to these small-group, roundtable discussions.
Join the hosts of the GeriPal podcast as they record a live episode of the field’s most popular podcast, featuring new research in care delivery for older adults with serious illness. Drs. Alex Smith and Eric Widera will sit down with a national leader in palliative care to discuss recently published research that has implications for palliative care leaders and palliative care delivery.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the implications of specific research publications for palliative care teams.
- Identify new science-based research in care delivery for older adults with serious illness.
UCSF Division of Geriatrics
University of California, San Francisco
Director of Hospice and Palliative Care
San Francisco, VA Medical Center
As palliative care programs increasingly integrate into large and complex health systems serving diverse populations across extensive geographies and care settings, a coordinated, system-wide approach is essential. This ensures that patients and families receive palliative care services when and where they need them. In this session, we will share examples of designing a comprehensive palliative care strategy within a health system.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the process for assessing the needs of patients with serious illness within the health system to develop an integrated palliative care strategy.
- Discuss various models for structuring palliative care programs within a health system.
- Identify approaches for retrieving program data across locations to demonstrate impact and value.
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Mount Carmel Health
In this highly interactive session, participants will engage in a collaborative case study focused on effective leadership skills and strategies that advance care quality for patients. Guided by seasoned field leaders, attendees will explore real-world challenges and learn how to be effective, strategic advocates for patients and teams in one’s leadership role.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify three core components of a framework for values-driven leadership.
- Apply these leadership principles to a complex health care case study.
- Discuss a leadership scenario focused on building and leveraging influence within an organization to drive positive structural changes that benefit patients and teams.
Lehigh Valley Health Network
Leaderly Consultants
In palliative care, embracing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) is essential for creating a supportive and effective work environment—and for achieving equitable care for our patients. The data show that teams that invest in DEIB are more productive, more creative, and more sustainable. This interactive workshop will guide participants on how to initiate DEIB practices within their teams and align these goals with their organization’s mission and vision.
Learning Outcomes
- Define Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging.
- Outline how DEIB principles manifest in palliative care teamwork and collaboration with nonpalliative care colleagues.
- Examine the similarities and differences between internal DEIB staff initiatives and external health equity efforts aimed at patients.
- Develop strategies to cultivate a culture of trust and collaboration, laying the groundwork for meaningful DEIB discussions within the team.
Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Seattle Children's Hospital
Developing emerging leaders through mentorship is vital to palliative care’s sustainability and growth. Creating a culture of learning from each other contributes to team health. In this session, we will explore the benefits of mentorship from both the mentor and mentee perspective and get down to the “nuts and bolts” of developing a mentor-mentee relationship, including tips for finding the right mentor and how to establish a successful bidirectional relationship.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the benefits of mentoring from both the mentor and mentee perspective.
- Identify strategies for finding the right mentor.
- Discuss strategies for establishing a successful bidirectional relationship.
Bellevue Hospital/NYU
Center to Advance Palliative Care
In our fast-paced world of health care, high consult volumes and pressures from patients, referring clinicians, and administrators can easily result in leaders neglecting essential programmatic needs. It’s easy to feel as if you are stuck on the treadmill with no opportunities to make your life easier! This session will explain the critical importance of dedicating time to strategic planning, data collection, and optimizing nonclinical functions to ensure the sustainability and effectiveness of your program—and will provide practical strategies to improve balance.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the essential non-clinical functions of a palliative care leader and their impact on overall program success.
- Identify 3 opportunities to improve efficiency and prioritize your time effectively, ensuring that your leadership efforts are focused on sustaining and enhancing program performance.
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Join community-based palliative care program leaders for an engaging session that explores the core design elements of palliative care programs and the conditions that influence program design decision-making. By comparing the unique approaches of multiple programs, attendees will gain insights into why these programs function as they do, what strategies they have used to ensure program sustainability, and how each program leader has navigated roadblocks.
Learning Outcomes
- Examine the key design decisions that influence the effectiveness and sustainability of community-based palliative care programs.
- Compare leadership lessons learned from the successes and challenges experienced by different programs.
- Participate in peer discussions about local palliative care program design considerations and gain insights from others in similar contexts.
Center for Palliative Psychiatry
Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) is an essential practice for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of palliative care programs. This session will demystify the CQI process, emphasizing that you don’t need to be a black belt to implement meaningful and lasting improvements. It will equip participants with fundamental quality management tools so they can identify problem areas, determine root causes, and test viable solutions.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify basic CQI tools and methodologies to effectively target areas for improvement in program operations.
- Collaborate with colleagues to identify opportunities to apply CQI tools in real-world scenarios.
- Develop action plans for implementing CQI in your own program to enhance performance and ensure highest-quality patient care.
North Shore University Hospital
Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine
Northwell
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Administrative burdens—prior authorizations, scheduling, and reporting, to name a few—can significantly impact the efficiency of palliative care teams, often detracting from the vital clinical work needed to support patients and families. This session will name the specific administrative challenges facing your team and explore effective strategies used by palliative care programs across the country to improve efficiency, allowing more time for mission-critical tasks.
Learning Outcomes
- Explain how administrative tasks affect team health, staff morale, and retention rates within palliative care programs.
- Identify 3 strategies to leverage the interprofessional team to share and optimize administrative responsibilities.
- Analyze the role of communication and data technology in streamlining administrative processes and enhancing overall efficiency.
The US Oncology Network
Clinicians have difficult jobs, often dealing with sadness, anger, frustration, moral distress, conflict, and compassion fatigue. Join us for an informal, facilitated, small-group discussion where you can share common reactions to your demanding work and coping strategies that can diminish the consequences of this stress. We are excited to offer this typically virtual CAPC experience in person at Seminar. Space is limited to 20 people per debriefing session.
Wellness Debriefings do not offer continuing education credits.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Narrative medicine is an emerging interdisciplinary field that empowers clinicians with skills from the arts, humanities, and social sciences to enhance patient care. This session will explore how narrative medicine enables health care professionals to identify, absorb, interpret, and respond to the stories that unfold in the context of serious illness.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify the principles of narrative medicine and its relevance in clinical practice.
- Describe practical techniques to expand your narrative competence, fostering deeper therapeutic partnerships with patients.
- Explain how the principles of narrative medicine can strengthen connections within clinical teams by utilizing storytelling as a tool for communication and understanding.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Financial distress is a significant concern for patients facing serious illness, with a substantial percentage of bankruptcies in America attributed to health-related costs. While palliative care teams may not be able to control the root causes of high out-of-pocket expenses, they can implement strategies to help alleviate the financial burden on their patients. This session will equip participants with the knowledge and tools to be effective advocates for patients and families struggling with the costs of being seriously ill.
Learning Outcomes
- Define financial hardship and name the financial costs associated with serious illness for patients and families.
- Identify 3 practices for engaging in medical-decision-making conversations that take into account the financial impact of serious illness.
National Patient Advocate Foundation
How does your state rate in palliative care capacity? This session introduces the CAPC Serious Illness Scorecard, offering a detailed look at the status of palliative care access, workforce training, advocacy infrastructure, payment models, and other critical factors across all 50 states. Presenters will describe how palliative care advocates can use individual state reports to identify areas for improvement in their states, and drive meaningful change at the local level.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify the components of the CAPC Serious Illness Scorecard to understand state-level performance in palliative care.
- Identify strategies for state-level palliative care capacity improvement with other attendees.
- Discuss how formal and informal coalitions have successfully advanced palliative care efforts in various states and local areas.
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Center to Advance Palliative Care
Psychedelics offer a unique opportunity to address the complex interplay of neurology, biology, psychology, and spirituality in patients with serious illness. Attendees will gain an understanding of the major psychedelic substances currently under investigation, the transdiagnostic mechanisms of psycho-spiritual suffering, and the results of recent studies involving psychedelics in palliative care settings.
Learning Outcomes
- Name key psychedelic substances and their therapeutic applications in palliative care.
- Summarize the recent research on the use of psychedelics in palliative care populations.
- List how psychedelics may address psycho-spiritual suffering in patients with serious illness.
UNMC
Discover the transformative potential of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in palliative care. Participants will gain foundational knowledge about the current state of AI, its practical applications in health care, and potential uses in palliative care. As AI continues to revolutionize the medical landscape, this session will highlight its implications for improving patient care and enhancing clinical workflows on the palliative care team.
Learning Outcomes
- Define AI and describe its relevance to palliative care.
- List specific use cases for AI in health care that safely and effectively accomplish micro-tasks to alleviate daily burdens for clinical teams.
- Assess the potential risks and benefits of AI applications to ensure a balanced perspective on its capabilities.
Providence Institute for Human Caring
Deciding what to measure, and what to do with your program data, can be complicated. Different audiences—payers, organization leaders, and program leaders—need data for different purposes. In this session, speakers will explore recommended structure, process, and outcome measures for the community-based palliative care program. Attendees will learn how to use program data for both quality improvement and demonstrating the value of the program.
Learning Outcomes
- Review data types, sources, and uses that may help program leaders make the case to grow and sustain the program.
- Discuss how to use data to demonstrate the value of the palliative care service to your organization, your referrers, and financial partners.
TF Analytics
Chief Medical Officer
CareConnect
Many of us navigate the dual role of family caregiver and health care professional. In these rewarding yet challenging roles, taking care of ourselves can be difficult. In this session, presenters will share their personal experiences and insights on managing this complex situation.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the challenges faced when balancing caregiving responsibilities for a loved one with the demands of a professional health care role.
- Identify practical tips and strategies for maintaining physical and emotional well-being while managing both personal and professional responsibilities.
- Discuss your own experiences, fostering a supportive community with those in similar positions.
Catholic Health Association
Doctor in the Family
Establishing criteria to identify the right patients at the right time is essential to enhancing patient care and ensuring efficient use of resources. At the same time, simplifying referral criteria is vital for encouraging referrers to think of you first, without being burdened by overly specific eligibility criteria. This session will delve into practical strategies that palliative care programs can adopt to ensure that palliative care gets to the patients who need it without overwhelming team capacity, while removing barriers for referrers.
Learning Outcomes
- Describe strategies for programs to establish clear patient eligibility criteria.
- Review strategies for developing a mechanism to sign off on patients when the consult is complete.
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
Center to Advance Palliative Care