Compassionate Care Act

Key Points

• The bill creates a national public education campaign, run through the CDC, to teach people about advance directives like living wills and health care powers of attorney, so their medical wishes are known if they become unable to speak for themselves.
• It sets up a pilot grant program for medical, nursing, and social work schools to build end-of-life care training into their degree programs, covering how to discuss advance care planning and palliative care with patients.
• The bill permanently allows telehealth visits, instead of only in-person ones, to renew a patient's eligibility for Medicare hospice care, and removes geographic restrictions on telehealth for advance care planning starting in 2027.
• HHS must study whether the country should create one standard national advance directive form that would count as valid across state lines for anyone in Medicare, Medicaid, or CHIP, addressing the current problem of rules changing from state to state.
• New quality measures would be developed to track how well hospitals, hospices, and other providers handle end-of-life care, including whether patients' wishes were followed, with reporting starting in 2029.