COVID’s Lasting Effects on Palliative Care
An article published in Palliative Care News discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic helped increase awareness of palliative care, and the value it brings patients living with serious illness, and their families. With this increased awareness, increased resources are needed to meet the increasing demand for these services.
CAPC's Brynn Bowman, MPA, said, "Throughout the pandemic, leaders of palliative care programs reported that their services had become highly visible and highly valued in terms of clinical cultures that relied upon them. What’s lagging now are the resources to be able to then honor that increased demand. Palliative care teams are struggling as census volumes go up and additional resources haven’t followed. They’re in a difficult time of trying to have better conversations with health plans, with CMS, and with leaders of health care organizations to try to translate that value into support for palliative care programs.”