The Future of Palliative Care: Who Will Lead, Who Will Pay, and What Comes Next? | Part Two

The future of palliative care will depend on who can deliver quality—and secure the resources to sustain it.

In Part Two, Chris Comeaux continues his conversation with Brynn Bowman, CEO of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), about the decisions facing hospice and healthcare leaders.  As health systems, payers, and community providers expand their roles, Bowman shifts the focus from who owns palliative care to who takes responsibility for its quality.

Together, they examine how payment opportunities, technology investments, and workforce capabilities could shape access to serious illness care.  They also explore the growing overlap between home-based primary care and palliative care, where broader responsibilities raise difficult questions about staffing, expertise, and financial sustainability.  Their message is clear: growth cannot depend on teams continually doing more with less.

For healthcare leaders, nonprofit executives, hospice professionals, and business leaders, this conversation offers practical priorities: strengthen operational infrastructure, assess community needs, and protect quality as services evolve. Bowman also considers what state initiatives could teach the field about a possible Medicare palliative care benefit—and why progress requires both flexibility and clear standards.

Five Key Takeaways

• Lead with quality: Focus on shared standards and patient needs when defining your organization’s role in community-based palliative care.
• Match payment to care: Pursue contracts that support the staffing, services, and expertise needed to deliver promised outcomes.
• Invest in operational capacity: Strengthen technology, billing, and workflows to make new payment opportunities workable.
• Expand with discipline: Assess community gaps and team capabilities before adding primary care responsibilities or other services.
• Support the evidence base: Participate in CAPC’s program inventory to help identify access gaps and inform advocacy.

After listening to this episode, consider bringing one question to your leadership team: What must we strengthen before we expand?  Share the episode with a colleague and subscribe to TCN Talks / Anatomy of Leadership for more conversations that connect leadership decisions with better care.

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