AAHPM Points of Progress

Advance the Field

Faculty Development Tool Kit

The Assessment Work Group is collaborating with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME; by invitation) to develop a faculty best in practice resource tool kit. They are creating a specialized “train the trainer” course for faculty development, which is tentatively scheduled for release in spring 2025. They are also working on producing two videos for the tool kit, centered on delivering serious news. The group convenes virtually once a month, with asynchronous tasks between sessions. The project is slated for completion in 2025.

Fellowship Training

The Fellowship Training Committee has been developing a best practices repository that program directors and associate program directors can use when they identify an area for improvement. This repository will be a way to generate ideas, see what other work people have done, and contact programs to learn about their best practices.

Palliative Care Quality Measures Project

Two new patient-reported experience measures are available for palliative care and other healthcare clinicians to implement in their practice. Specifically, the measures assess the quality of care provided by asking how much patients felt heard and understood, and if patients got the help they wanted for their pain.

As of January 2024, one measure (Feeling Heard and Understood) is available for any clinician to report on within the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).

To maintain this measure in the program, AAHPM is now participating in the Quality Measures Management and Support measure stewards meetings. These monthly calls are hosted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to keep track of how measures are performing in CMS quality reporting programs.

In addition, Katherine Ast, director of quality and research at AAHPM, will serve on the advisory board of RAND’s new study on patient-reported outcome measures, including “Feeling Heard and Understood” and “Help Wanted for Pain,” in palliative care telehealth.

For implementation and quality improvement support, please see AAHPM’s free Implementation Guide.

The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management published Patient-Reported Quality Measures for Palliative Care: The Time Is Now, which places the new measures in the overall context of quality measurement for the field.

Support Professional Success

Annual Assembly 2025: AAHPM-Hosted Preconference Workshops

Announcing AAHPM’s slate of preconference workshops for 2025 Annual Assembly:

• HMD Certification Review Course and Update Full-Day Workshop
  • Presented by Bethany Snider, MD HMDC FAAHPM, Balakrishnan (Balu) Natarajan, MD HMDC, and Bethany Calkins, MD MM HMDC FAAHPM
• Striking a Balance: Understanding Pain Management and Opioids—A Case-Based Curriculum
  • This half-day Medication Access and Training Expansion Act– and Opioid Analgesic REMS–compliant preconference workshop is offered at no charge to preregistered attendees through an independent educational grant from the Opioid Analgesics REMS Program Companies.
• Outpatient Palliative Care: Clinical and Program Management
  • Presented by Christian Sinclair, MD, Eric Goodlev, MD, Kira Skavinski, DO, and Esme Finlay, MD
• Reconstructing Palliative Care Clinical Practice: Interrogating and Innovating
  • Presented by Vickie Leff, MSW LCSW APHSW-C, and Terry Altilio, MSW ACSW LCSW
• The Symptomatic Estuary, Where Palliative and Hospice Meet: Advanced Complex Symptom Management in the Terminally Ill Patient (AAHPM and SPPCP Collaborative)
  • Presented by Samuel Perna III, DO, Michelle Krichbaum, PharmD BCPP, and Laura Meyer-Junco, PharmD BCPS CPE FASCP
• Pharmacotherapy Considerations for Challenging Symptoms in Serious Illness: The Goldilocks Guide
  • Presented by Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD PhD BCPS FAAHPM, Eric Widera, MD, Jeremy Hirsch, MD, Max Stevenson, PharmD MA BCPS, and Alex McPherson, PharmD MPH
• Empower: Elevating Personal Leadership through Self-Discovery and Strategic Business Planning (AAHPM and CAPC Collaborative)
  • Presented by Rodney Tucker, MD, Perihan El Shanawany, MD HEC-C, Tom Gualtieri-Reed, MBA, and Donna Stevens
• Best Practices and Beyond: Updates in Fellowship Education
  • Presented by Stephen Berns, MD FAAHPM, and Laura Dingfield, MD MSEd FAAHPM
• Using Art to Build Connection and Find Meaning: An Experience at the Denver Art Museum
  • Led by Laura Morrison, MD FAAHPM, and Gordon J Wood, MD FAAHPM

2024 Intensive Review Course

• “[This course] was an excellent prep with [an] exceptional faculty team and not only validated my knowledge and my practice [but also] gave me important updates on advances in the field.”
• “I learned more about what I don’t know and how much I need to update my knowledge. By doing so, I will become a better physician to my patients.”
• “I came away with so many pearls to directly improve my work in palliative [care] and feel more confident about taking the boards exam this fall.”
• “This course has greatly improved my practice.”

2024 Intensive Review Course recordings are now available.

Learn

Check out the Academy’s new CME/MOC activities available on Learn.

• On-demand self-study 2024 Intensive Review Course recordings offer 24.5 CME/MOC credit awards.
• On-demand self-study Essential Psychiatric Skills for the Palliative Care Practitioner offers 5.0 CME/MOC credit awards.
• Quarterly Grand Rounds Lecture Series: “The Importance of Being Human: Reflections of an Aspiring Medical Humanist” with Joe Rotella, MD MBA HMDC FAAHPM (Recording will be made available.)

Leadership Scholarship

Congratulations to AAHPM’s Leadership Scholarship recipients:

• Ashley Autrey, MD, Children’s Hospital New Orleans (South, pediatrician)
• Andrea Cuviello, MD FAAP, Phoenix Children’s Hospital (pediatrician)
• Harry Han, MD, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of Harvard Medical School
• Lindsay Marszal, MD, University of North Carolina (pediatrician)
• Allison Silverstein, MD, University of Colorado School of Medicine (South, pediatrician)

Advocacy Update

AAHPM was invited by Rep Earl Blumenauer’s (D-OR) office to provide comments on a legislative discussion draft on hospice integrity and payment. The legislation is entitled “Hospice Care Accountability, Reform and Enforcement (Hospice CARE) Act” and covers multiple areas related to hospice policy. A copy of AAHPM’s comment letter is here. This legislation has now been introduced as HR 9803 and the Academy’s Hospice Policy Ad Hoc Work Group will continue to address policies that will impact hospice integrity.

AAHPM submitted comments on the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule. Comments were drafted with input from both the Public Policy and Quality Committees. The Academy’s comments addressed issues related to the proposed physician pay cuts that would result from the proposed rule, discussed issues related to telehealth and MIPS, and responded to a request for information on building the MIPS value pathways (MVP) framework to improve ambulatory specialty care.

AAHPM submitted comments to CMS in response to the Fiscal Year 2025 Hospice Wage Index and Payment Rate Update proposed rule. The letter focuses on proposals related to the Hospice Quality Reporting Program as well as a request for information related to payment for high-intensity palliative care services. The letter also urges CMS to pursue higher-impact strategies to address program integrity under the Medicare hospice benefit.

AAHPM submitted comments to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a proposal to reform the National Institutes of Health (summary document).

AAHPM participated in a meeting with the Office of Management and Budget to discuss the existing proposed rule regarding the use of telehealth to prescribe controlled substances, which was originally issued in 2023. AAHPM reiterated its position that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) account for the unique needs of seriously ill patients—including those near the end of life—when finalizing policies related to the prescribing of controlled substances via telemedicine. The Academy had previously submitted comments on this proposed rule, and Joe Rotella, MD, provided testimony to the DEA on this proposed rule.

Build a Vibrant Community

Research

AAHPM Science Advisor Stacy Fischer with support from Areej El-Jawahri and Laura Hanson have been working diligently on operationalizing AAHPM’s vision to grow and sustain a home for an interdisciplinary community of palliative care scientists. To this end, the science advisors are meeting with internal stakeholders like the Research and Quality Committees, staff, and board members to share the vision and solicit feedback. Outreach to external stakeholders, such as the American Geriatrics Society, American Society for Clinical Oncology, and the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care, among others, has also kicked off, to learn from other organizations’ efforts with their research communities.

In the U54 grant application, “Advancing the Science of Palliative Care Research Across the Lifespan (ASCENT) Consortium,” AAHPM pledged support through their science advisors to prioritize and implement new and ongoing research initiatives in alignment with the ASCENT Consortium, ensuring synergy, cooperation, and collaboration.

Former Palliative Care Research Collaborative Special Interest Group members were able to join “Research Collaboratives” on AAHPM’s Connect platform and received complimentary AAHPM membership for 1 year.

Quality

AAHPM was represented on a task force of the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care to discuss updating the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care, currently in its fourth edition. The task force’s efforts focused on scoping the work required to update the guidelines, with the goal being to develop a budget to inform funding requests. One important focus of the group was to identify key conditions to warrant updates to the guidelines, such as innovations in clinical practice, advancements in technology, emergence of new evidence, shifts in health policy, uptake of telehealth, and the need to address equity.

As part of the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) certification standards, ABMS member boards were asked to undertake a process, in collaboration with stakeholder organizations, for supporting an agenda to improve the quality of care in their specialties, with one area of emphasis involving eliminating health care disparities. AAHPM shared its top issues, including

1. goals of care and shared decision making
2. relief and prioritization of symptoms.

The “Feeling Heard and Understood” measure could act as a surrogate for patient-reported perception of having whole-person care, regardless of who is providing that care, while the “Help Wanted for Pain” measure could fall under the “relief and prioritization of symptoms” bucket.

Membership

Ensure a Strong Organization 

Development Update

Typically, 60% or more of AAHPM’s annual revenue is received in the last 2 months of the calendar year.