TCN Talks

FULL EPISODE of “The Debate: Vertical Integration, Payvider or World-Class Care—Which Path Forward?”

This video brings together the complete discussion behind the previously released segments on hospice strategy, palliative care, and the future of healthcare leadership.

What if the greatest threat to hospice is succeeding at the wrong strategy?

In this special episode of TCNtalks / Anatomy of Leadership, host Chris Comeaux plays three distinct characters, each defending a different vision for the future of hospice and serious illness care:

• Paul — Vertical Integration: Build a broader care continuum that reaches patients earlier and supports them through changing needs.

• Christopher — Payvider Strategy: Align care delivery and financial responsibility to influence how care is funded and delivered.

• Comeaux — World-Class Hospice and Palliative Care: Make specialty excellence, measurable outcomes, and patient trust the foundation of strategy.

Each strategy offers opportunities. Each introduces risks. Through the story of Mary, an older adult living with serious illness, and her overwhelmed caregiver, Chris examines what these organizational decisions mean for patients and families.

For healthcare leaders, nonprofit executives, hospice professionals, and business leaders, this full episode explores how to navigate workforce shortages, reimbursement pressure, population health, and changing baby boomer expectations while protecting clinical excellence and meaningful patient choice.

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, Author of the Anatomy of Leadership

JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Which perspective—Paul’s, Christopher’s, or Comeaux’s—best fits your organization’s capabilities and your community’s needs? Share your reasoning in the comments.o is about The Debate - Full Episode

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

The future of hospice and palliative care demands difficult choices about growth, financial responsibility, and clinical excellence. How can leaders build a sustainable organization while keeping patients and families at the center? Part Four brings those choices into sharp focus.

Three characters. Three competing healthcare strategies. One host putting every approach to the test.

In The Debate: Vertical Integration, Payvider or World-Class Care—Which Path Forward? | Part Four, Chris Comeaux plays all three characters in a debate about the future of hospice, palliative care, and serious illness care:

• Paul — Vertical Integration: Build a broader care continuum that reaches patients earlier and supports them through changing needs.
• Christopher — Payvider Strategy: Align care delivery and financial responsibility to influence how care is funded and delivered.
• Comeaux — World-Class Hospice and Palliative Care: Make specialty excellence, measurable outcomes, and patient trust the foundation of strategy.

In this installment of TCNtalks / Anatomy of Leadership, all three voices face difficult questions. Can Paul expand the continuum without sacrificing quality? Can Christopher align financial incentives while protecting clinical decisions and patient choice? Can Comeaux turn exceptional care into meaningful access when others control referral pathways?

Their cross-examination points toward a sequenced approach: build world-class care at the core, strengthen continuity through services and partnerships, and pursue appropriate financial participation when the organization is ready.

For healthcare leaders, nonprofit executives, hospice professionals, and business leaders, this episode explores:

• What world-class hospice and specialty palliative care require
• Why clinical excellence needs a market access strategy
• How vertical integration and partnerships can improve continuity
• Where payvider models and value-based care create conflicts
• Why patient choice and changing baby boomer expectations must shape strategy

Subscribe to TCNtalks / Anatomy of Leadership for thoughtful conversations about healthcare strategy and leadership. Share this episode with your team, and tell us in the comments: Which argument resonates most—Paul’s, Christopher’s, or Comeaux’s—and why?

Explore Chris Comeaux’s book, The Anatomy of Leadership, on Amazon.

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Who controls the healthcare dollar—and how does that control shape patient care?

In Part Three of The Debate: Vertical Integration, Payvider or World-Class Care—Which Path Forward?, Chris Comeaux examines whether aligning healthcare financing and care delivery can help hospice and palliative care organizations better serve patients—or introduce new conflicts between financial performance and mission.

"Christopher" presents the payvider case: providers need a voice in the flow of risk, capital, data, and decision-making to invest earlier in prevention, home-based care, and caregiver support. Chris tests that argument against the realities of financial risk, organizational scale, patient choice, and clinical independence.

Using Mary’s care as a practical example, this conversation asks what healthcare leaders must put in place to ensure that better financial alignment produces better care.

In this episode:
• How value-based care can support proactive, interdisciplinary services
• Different ways providers can participate in accountable care and financial risk
• Why becoming a payer requires capabilities beyond excellent care delivery
• How integrated networks can affect access and patient choice
• Governance safeguards that protect quality of life and organizational mission

Whether you lead a hospice, palliative care program, nonprofit, or healthcare organization, this debate offers questions to bring into your next strategic planning conversation.

Join the conversation: What safeguards would your organization require before taking on financial risk for patient care? Share your perspective in the comments.

Subscribe to TCNtalks / Anatomy of Leadership and continue the conversation in Part Four. Share this episode with a colleague navigating healthcare strategy, value-based care, or the future of hospice.

Host:
Chris Comeaux

Full Episode Characters:
Paul: Vertical Integration / Frail-Elder Practice
Christopher: Payvider Strategy
Comeaux: World-Class Hospice and Palliative Care

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Can vertical integration help hospice organizations deliver better care earlier—and sustain the investment required?

In Part Two of “The Debate: Vertical Integration, Payvider or World-Class Care—Which Path Forward?”, Chris Comeaux examines the case for extending hospice expertise into palliative care and home-based primary care for frail elders.

Paul presents a vision of care built around lasting relationships, interdisciplinary teams, and support that follows patients as their needs change. Chris tests that vision against the realities of capital, reimbursement, workforce shortages, organizational culture, rural access, and patient choice.

The central question: Can healthcare organizations build a connected continuum while protecting world-class quality and every patient’s freedom to choose?

In this episode:
• Why hospice organizations are considering moving upstream
• How home-based care can support patients and caregivers earlier
• Why fee-for-service reimbursement may fall short
• The financial and operational risks of expanding services
• How ethical integration can support timely hospice transitions

For healthcare leaders, nonprofit executives, hospice professionals, and business leaders evaluating vertical integration, payvider strategies, population health, and value-based care.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Sponsor messages
00:45 Welcome to Part Two
01:07 Why hospice should move upstream
03:41 Competition, reimbursement, and the case for integration
06:54 Mary’s story: Supporting patients before a crisis
07:58 Where the integration argument resonates
08:52 The costs and risks of expansion
12:56 Ethical integration and final takeaways

Listen, share this episode with your leadership team, and tell us in the comments: What must an integrated care model do to earn patients’ trust?

Host:
Chris Comeaux

Characters:
Paul: Vertical Integration / Frail-Elder Practice
Christopher: Payvider Strategy
Comeaux: World-Class Hospice and Palliative Care

Subscribe for more conversations from TCNtalks and Anatomy of Leadership. Join us next Wednesday as THE Debate continues.

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

What if hospice succeeds at the wrong strategy? Chris Comeaux explores three paths for the future of hospice and palliative care: vertical integration, the payvider model, and world-class specialty care.

In Part One of THE Debate: Vertical Integration, Payvider or World-Class Care—Which Path Forward?, Chris sets the stage for an unusual conversation—playing three characters, Paul, Christopher and Comeaux, who represent competing visions for serious illness care.

Should organizations build a coordinated continuum of hospice, palliative care, and home-based primary care? Should they also participate in healthcare financing and risk? Or should they focus on becoming indisputably world class in their specialties?

This opening installment introduces eight challenges shaping those choices, from reimbursement and workforce pressures to changing patient expectations, artificial intelligence, and caregiver strain. It also establishes the question at the heart of the debate: Which strategy best serves patients and families, and under what conditions?

For healthcare leaders, nonprofit executives, hospice professionals, and business leaders navigating change, this episode provides a starting point for a deeper strategic conversation.

Which path best fits your organization—and what would need to be true for it to work? Share your perspective in the comments, send this episode to your leadership team, and subscribe for Part Two.

*** Referenced Podcast: https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast/future-proofing-care-the-challenges-we-face-in-hospice-and-palliative-care-part-one

Host: Chris Comeaux

Characters:
Paul: Vertical Integration / Frail-Elder Practice
Christopher: Payvider Strategy
Comeaux: World-Class Hospice and Palliative Care

Thank you to Netsmart for sponsoring this podcast.

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

What happens when the demand for care grows faster than the workforce available to provide it?

Ron Hetrick joins host Chris Comeaux on TCNTalks / Anatomy of Leadership to explore the healthcare workforce crisis—and the decisions leaders can make today to prepare for tomorrow’s staffing challenges.

In Part Two, the conversation moves into practical workforce planning: improving care jobs, developing talent pipelines, strengthening employee retention, and understanding how an aging population could reshape competition for caregivers.

They also examine AI in healthcare, the limits of robotics, and why technology’s greatest contribution may be giving people more time and capacity for meaningful care.

In this episode, discover:

• How to make healthcare careers more attractive to new workers
• Why training and retention require sustained investment
• Where AI could reduce administrative burdens and support learning
• How private home care could change competition for talent
• Why local workforce data belongs in every expansion decision
• How collaboration among providers could help protect access to care

Take the conversation into your next leadership meeting: What workforce decision can you make this quarter that will strengthen your organization’s ability to deliver care in 2030?

Subscribe to TCN Talks / Anatomy of Leadership, share this episode with your team, and leave a comment about the staffing challenge your organization is working to solve.

Featured Guest: Ron Hetrick, Principal Economist with Lightcast

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS and author of The Anatomy of Leaderships about The Workforce Crisis Part Two

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

The healthcare workforce crisis is bigger than unfilled jobs. What happens when demand for care keeps growing while the pool of available workers shrinks?

In “The Workforce Crisis Healthcare Leaders Can’t Afford to Ignore | Part One,” Chris Comeaux welcomes Ron Hetrick, principal economist at Lightcast, to TCNtalks / Anatomy of Leadership for a candid conversation about healthcare staffing shortages, demographic change, and the future of work.

Hetrick explains how baby boomer retirement, smaller younger generations, and an aging population are reshaping the labor supply—and why he expects the pressure to intensify between 2030 and 2035. Together, Chris and Ron explore what these shifts could mean for hospice, palliative care, home health, and the essential workers who keep organizations running.

This conversation also examines the interaction of demographics, artificial intelligence, and geopolitical uncertainty, along with Hetrick’s case for treating immigration as a strategic workforce resource.

Whether you lead a healthcare organization, nonprofit, hospice team, or business, this episode offers a starting point for examining the assumptions behind your workforce planning.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why healthcare staffing challenges extend beyond COVID-19
• How an aging population changes the demand for care
• Why retirements and smaller graduating classes matter
• How education choices affect essential workforce availability
• The role of immigration in addressing labor shortages

Featured Guest: Ron Hetrick, Principal Economist with Lightcast

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS and author of The Anatomy of Leadership

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

What workforce challenge is putting the most pressure on your organization? Share your perspective in the comments.

Subscribe to TCNtalks / Anatomy of Leadership, share this episode with your leadership team, and watch Part Two for the next conversation: the battle plan.

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Hospice’s future is being shaped by the headlines leaders cannot afford to overlook.

In Hospice at a Crossroads: The Top News Stories Leaders Can’t Ignore | Part Two, Chris Comeaux and Cordt Kassner examine the hospice news and healthcare leadership questions that deserve your attention—from fraud and public trust to caregiver support, workforce sustainability, and AI in healthcare.

Drawing on articles featured in Hospice and Palliative Care Today, they explore what these developments could mean for hospice and palliative care organizations, nonprofit executives, and the leaders supporting frontline teams.

In this episode:

• How hospice fraud threatens public confidence and patient access
• Why caregiver support and workforce sustainability demand attention
• How AI, interoperability, and predictive tools are entering leadership conversations
• What Netflix, software implementation, and branding can teach hospice leaders
• Why policy headlines need careful interpretation

The conversation also considers consolidation, private equity, outside-of-hospice spending, and the enduring importance of mission as organizations adapt.

Which issue deserves the most attention in your organization? Share your perspective in the comments, send this episode to a colleague, and subscribe to TCN Talks / Anatomy of Leadership for more conversations about the decisions shaping care.

Host:
Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Co-Host:
Cordt Kassner, PhD, Publisher of Hospice & Palliative Care Today & CEO and Founder of Hospice Analytics

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Hospice leaders face a defining question: How do we protect trust and deliver exceptional care as the field changes around us?

In Hospice at a Crossroads: The Top News Stories Leaders Can’t Ignore | Part One, Chris Comeaux and Cordt Kassner unpack hospice and palliative care news from July–September 2026. Using Dr. Ira Byock’s framework and readership insights from Hospice and Palliative Care Today, they connect the quarter’s headlines to the decisions facing healthcare leaders, nonprofit executives, and hospice professionals.

The conversation explores CMS hospice updates and the Service and Spending Variation Index (SSVI), including why the speakers caution against treating it as a standalone quality grade. They also discuss pediatric hospice and concurrent care, the overlooked role of friend caregivers, and the evolving research on private equity ownership in hospice.

As families turn to Google and AI tools for answers, how can hospice organizations communicate their quality clearly? And what can community care, pet programs, and support for people without stable housing teach us about hospice’s authentic purpose?

The episode closes with an ethical discussion about organ donation and medical aid in dying.

Continue the conversation: Which issue is most pressing for your organization? Share your perspective in the comments, send this episode to your leadership team, and subscribe for Part Two.

Host:
Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Co-Host:
Cordt Kassner, PhD, Publisher of Hospice & Palliative Care Today & CEO and Founder of Hospice Analytics

Thank you to Netsmart for sponsoring this podcast.
https://www.ntst.com/ai?utm_source=tcn-talks&utm_campaign=tcn-talks&utm_medium=display&utm_content=ai

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Who will lead community-based palliative care—and how will they pay for care that meets patients’ needs?

In Part Two of The Future of Palliative Care: Who Will Lead, Who Will Pay, and What Comes Next?, Chris Comeaux joins CAPC CEO Brynn Bowman to explore palliative care reimbursement, hospice leadership, and the choices shaping serious illness care.

Bowman makes a clear distinction: many organizations can deliver palliative care, but the field must lead on quality. New payment opportunities offer reasons for optimism. Turning those opportunities into sustainable care requires stronger operations, adequate contracts, and teams with the right skills.

The conversation also examines the overlap between home-based primary care and palliative care. As programs consider broader responsibilities, leaders must weigh patient needs against their capacity to deliver—and resist the pressure to keep doing more with less.

In this episode:

• Define your role in community-based palliative care.
• Align payment arrangements with the cost of quality care.
• Strengthen technology, infrastructure, and workforce capabilities.
• Evaluate opportunities to integrate primary and palliative care.
• Consider what state initiatives could teach us about a Medicare palliative care benefit.

Whether you lead a hospice, nonprofit, health system, or serious illness program, this discussion offers a practical starting point for decisions about growth, investment, and accountability.

Join the conversation: What does your organization need most to deliver sustainable palliative care: stronger payment, better infrastructure, or expanded clinical capabilities? Share your perspective in the comments.

Guest

Brynn Bowman, CEO of the Center to Advance Palliative Care, and Assistant Professor in the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai

Host

Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Subscribe to TCN Talks / Anatomy of Leadership and share this episode with your leadership team.

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

What will it take for palliative care to reach every patient who needs it—and who will ultimately pay for that care?

In Part One of “The Future of Palliative Care: Who Will Lead, Who Will Pay, and What Comes Next?”, host Chris Comeaux sits down with Brynn Bowman, CEO of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), for a forward-looking conversation about the forces reshaping palliative care—and what healthcare leaders need to be watching now.

As palliative care principles spread across oncology, home health, Medicare Advantage, health systems, and other serious-illness models, an important question emerges: What actually makes something specialty palliative care? Brynn shares CAPC’s work to establish minimum standards for specialty palliative care programs, helping define expectations around services, staffing, training, quality, and outcomes.

Chris and Brynn also tackle one of the field’s most persistent challenges: reimbursement. Palliative care programs often piece together multiple revenue streams—from Part B billing and ACO or Medicare Advantage contracts to financial support from their parent organizations. CAPC’s Palliative Care Program Inventory seeks to create a clearer picture of where programs exist, how they are funded, and where significant access gaps remain.

The conversation then turns to CMS and the future of payment. Brynn explains why recent activity across hospice, home health, and the physician fee schedule may indicate increased federal attention to how Medicare beneficiaries with serious illness access palliative care—and why leaders should be paying attention to what happens next.

What You’ll Learn

• What palliative care access could look like five years from now
• Why specialty palliative care remains essential as other care models expand
• Why the field needs clearer minimum standards
• How palliative care programs are piecing together reimbursement today
• Where major rural and community-based access gaps remain
• Why training non-specialists and preserving specialty teams must happen together
• What recent CMS activity could signal about future palliative care payment
• What the proposed home health rule actually means for palliative care

For leaders in hospice, palliative care, serious illness care, healthcare, and value-based care, Part One provides an important look at a field approaching a pivotal moment.

And the conversation isn’t over. Don’t miss Part Two as Chris and Brynn continue exploring what comes next for palliative care and the leaders responsible for shaping its future.

Guest:

Brynn Bowman, CEO of the Center to Advance Palliative Care, and Assistant Professor in the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Mount Sinai

Host:

Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Link to Blog:

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

What if the greatest leadership advantage in the age of AI is something technology can never truly replicate?

As artificial intelligence transforms how we work, lead, and communicate, the temptation is to use technology to accomplish more—and move even faster. But what if the real opportunity is to use AI to create more margin for the human work of leadership?

In Part Two of “AI Can’t Replace This: The Leadership Advantage That’s More Human Than Ever,” Chris Comeaux continues his conversation with Dr. Andrea Hollingsworth, author of The Compassion Advantage, exploring why self-compassion, resilience, values, hope, and genuine human connection are becoming essential leadership capabilities.

Andrea gets personal about her own experience with a relentless inner critic and burnout—and explains why self-compassion isn’t lowering the bar. It’s learning to respond to mistakes and difficult moments with kindness, accountability, and a growth mindset rather than shame and self-punishment.

Then the conversation turns directly to AI. Andrea challenges leaders to resist filling every minute technology saves with another task. Instead, she suggests using AI to free cognitive load and create greater capacity for presence, relationships, compassion, and connection. That may be where the true leadership advantage lies.

For healthcare, hospice, nonprofit, and business leaders navigating unprecedented change, this conversation offers both practical tools and an important challenge: Don’t let technology help you become more productive at the expense of becoming less human.

🎯 Highlights — What You’ll Learn

• Why self-compassion is essential to resilient leadership—not a sign of weakness
• How to turn down the inner critic without abandoning accountability
• Why your core values can steady you during uncertainty and disruption
• Practical habits leaders can use when feeling overwhelmed
• The power of remembering: “I’m a supporter, not a savior.”
• Why small acts of kindness can strengthen emotional resilience
• How leaders can inspire hope in an increasingly disconnected world
• Why AI should free your cognitive load instead of adding to it
• How technology can create more margin for human connection
• Why compassionate workplace cultures matter for engagement, resilience, innovation, and retention

If this conversation challenges how you think about AI, compassion, and the future of leadership, share it with another leader who needs to hear it—and subscribe to TCNtalks and Anatomy of Leadership for more conversations designed to help you grow as a leader and as a human being.

▶️ Watch Part Two now, and subscribe. If you missed Part One, be sure to watch / listen.

Podcast Guest:
Andrea Hollingsworth, Founder and CEO of Hollingsworth Consulting and author of The Compassion Advantage: How Top Leaders Build More Humanizing Workplaces

Our Host:
Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

What if the greatest leadership advantage in the age of AI is something artificial intelligence can never truly replicate?

As AI becomes smarter, faster, and more embedded in the workplace, Dr. Andrea Hollingsworth believes the qualities that make us distinctly human—compassion, connection, vulnerability, and the ability to care—are becoming more valuable, not less.

In Part One of “AI Can’t Replace This: The Leadership Advantage That’s More Human Than Ever,” host Chris Comeaux sits down with Dr. Hollingsworth, founder and CEO of Hollingsworth Consulting and author of The Compassion Advantage: How Top Leaders Build More Humanizing Workplaces. Together, they explore what effective leadership looks like in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

Andrea introduces the powerful concept of “compassionate agility”—leading with genuine care and connection while still having the courage to make difficult decisions, navigate uncertainty, and drive organizational excellence. She also shares a principle every healthcare leader needs to hear: “Care, don’t carry.” Leaders can support their teams through stress, grief, and change without carrying the emotional weight themselves.

You’ll also hear an insightful discussion about therapeutic leadership coaching, vulnerability, emotional resilience, and the potential impact of AI on human identity. Rather than asking only what AI can do for us, Andrea challenges leaders to consider a deeper question: Is technology strengthening our capacity to think, create, connect, and solve problems—or slowly replacing the very experiences that help us grow?

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

• Why compassion could become an even greater leadership advantage in the AI era
• What compassionate agility looks like in practice
• Why leaders need to “care, don’t carry”
• How vulnerability can strengthen leadership and organizational culture
• Why personal healing and self-awareness influence how we lead others
• How to use AI to enhance human connection rather than replace it
• Why struggle, friction, and problem-solving remain essential to human growth

AI can make us more efficient. The bigger leadership question is whether we’ll use it to become more human.

▶️ Watch Part One now, and subscribe so you don’t miss Part Two.

Podcast Guest:
Andrea Hollingsworth, Founder and CEO of Hollingsworth Consulting and author of The Compassion Advantage: How Top Leaders Build More Humanizing Workplaces

Our Host:
Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Hospice is changing—and the leaders who prepare now will be positioned to shape what comes next.

In Part Two of The Critical Competencies Hospice Leaders Must Build for Value-Based Care Success, host Chris Comeaux continues his conversation with Dr. Jessica Hubbs about what hospice and palliative care organizations need to succeed as healthcare moves toward more integrated, value-based models.

What capabilities should hospice organizations build internally—and when should they partner? Dr. Hubbs explores the growing convergence of home-based primary care, palliative care, and hospice, and why a more seamless continuum could give seriously ill patients access to the right services based on need rather than simply a point in time.

The conversation also examines complex care management, Medicare Advantage, dementia and length-of-stay challenges, and how hospice can expand upstream without losing what makes the hospice model so valuable. For leaders preparing their organizations for the next 12–24 months, Dr. Hubbs identifies three essential investments: clinical infrastructure, data, and strategic partnerships.

Highlights — What You’ll Learn

• Preparing hospice for value-based care
• Building the right strategic partnerships
• Integrating primary, palliative, and hospice care
• Better serving complex and high-need patients
• Expanding care upstream without losing hospice’s mission
• Using data to improve care and outcomes
• Investing in clinical capabilities, data, and partnerships
• Keeping patients at the center of change

Above all, this episode brings the conversation back to the mission: doing right by the patient. In a healthcare environment filled with reimbursement pressure, regulatory change, and uncertainty, patient-centered leadership can remain the compass for innovation and better serious illness care.

In this episode discover the competencies hospice leaders should be building today to prepare for the future of value-based care.

Subscribe to TCNtalks and Anatomy of Leadership for conversations designed to help healthcare and hospice leaders learn, grow, and lead with greater impact.

Guest: Dr. Jessica Hubbs, Internist and the Chief Clinical Officer at Advanced Care Innovations

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

The future of hospice is being rewritten—and the organizations that prepare now may be the ones best positioned to serve patients in a value-based world.

Healthcare is rapidly moving beyond traditional fee-for-service toward models focused on outcomes, total cost of care, and coordinated care delivery. In Part One of The Critical Competencies Hospice Leaders Must Build for Value-Based Care Success, host Chris Comeaux sits down with Dr. Jessica Hubbs, Internist and Chief Clinical Officer at Advanced Care Innovations, to explore what this transformation means for hospice and palliative care leaders.

Dr. Hubbs examines emerging models such as LEAD (Long-term Enhanced ACO Design) and why moving care further upstream could create both disruption and significant opportunity for hospice organizations. The conversation explores how hospice's strengths in advanced care planning, complex conversations, patient goals and values, and interdisciplinary care could become increasingly valuable across the broader serious illness continuum.

But succeeding in this new environment will require new capabilities. Chris and Dr. Hubbs discuss the importance of end-to-end clinical care, complex primary care, care coordination, financial-risk readiness, and collaborative partnerships with ACOs and other risk-bearing organizations—and why the future may be less about competing for the patient and more about building integrated models around them.

Episode Highlights

• Why hospice leaders need to understand the shift to value-based care
• What the LEAD model could mean for serious illness care
• The opportunity to bring hospice expertise further upstream
• Critical clinical capabilities hospice organizations need to develop
• Combining hospice and palliative expertise with home-based primary care
• What ACOs and risk-bearing organizations want from hospice partners

Guest: Dr. Jessica Hubbs, Internist and the Chief Clinical Officer at Advanced Care Innovations

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Your culture isn’t defined by what your organization says it values—it’s revealed by the behaviors it allows, rewards, and repeats.

In Part Two of Your Culture Isn't What You Say—It's What You Tolerate, host Chris Comeaux continues his conversation with author and leadership expert Tom Foster about what it takes to intentionally build a strong organizational culture.

Tom challenges leaders to look beyond KPIs and productivity metrics and examine whether the behaviors being measured actually support the organization’s mission and purpose. Using examples from healthcare and home health, they explore how well-intentioned performance measures can sometimes work against the outcomes leaders truly want.

Chris and Tom also discuss practical ways to evaluate culture—including examining behaviors, organizational systems, customs and rituals, and actually going to see the work firsthand. The conversation explores the relationship between leadership, workplace culture, strategy, employee development, organizational behavior, and performance—and why culture and strategy continuously shape one another.

One leadership principle captures the heart of the episode:

“Reality always wins. The biggest challenge for the leader is simply to get in touch with it.” — Tom Foster

If you're a healthcare leader, hospice professional, nonprofit executive, or business leader, this episode will challenge you to look beyond the culture you intend to create and examine the culture your organization is actually producing.

Featuring: Tom Foster, President of Foster Learning Corporation and author of Premeditated Culture: The Consequences of What We Tolerate,

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Topics: Organizational Culture | Healthcare Leadership | Hospice Leadership | Accountability | Leadership Development | Workplace Culture | Organizational Behavior | Purpose-Driven Leadership | Culture Change

Subscribe to TCNtalks and Anatomy of Leadership for more conversations on leadership, healthcare, organizational culture, and building high-performing teams.

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

Your culture isn’t what your organization says it values—it’s what your leaders are willing to tolerate.

In Part One of Your Culture Isn't What You Say—It's What You Tolerate, host Chris Comeaux sits down with Tom Foster, President of Foster Learning Corporation and author of Premeditated Culture: The Consequences of What We Tolerate, to explore how leaders intentionally—or unintentionally—shape organizational culture.

Tom challenges leaders to look beyond mission statements, values on the wall, and aspirational language. Instead, he introduces the Culture Cycle and explains why leaders should start by defining the behaviors they want, then examine what happens when those behaviors collide with the consequences of reality. Because ultimately, the behaviors leaders reinforce, ignore, or allow to continue become the organization's real culture.

Chris and Tom also explore why culture often deteriorates through seemingly small lapses in accountability and how pressures facing healthcare and hospice leaders—including workforce shortages, regulation, compliance, productivity demands, reimbursement pressures, and rapid change—can expose the difference between an organization’s stated values and its actual behaviors.

In This Episode:

• Why culture lives in what leaders tolerate
• The difference between accidental and intentional culture
• Tom Foster’s Culture Cycle
• Why leaders should define behaviors before beliefs
• How accountability—or the lack of it—shapes workplace culture
• Why consultants should clarify before they fix
• How small leadership omissions can slowly erode culture
• How healthcare pressures test organizational values
• What hospice leaders can learn about connecting behaviors with purpose

The question for every leader: Are the behaviors happening inside your organization consistent with the culture you say you want?

▶️ Listen to Part One now, and subscribe so you don’t miss Part Two of this important leadership conversation.

Featuring: Tom Foster, President of Foster Learning Corporation and author of Premeditated Culture: The Consequences of What We Tolerate,

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Topics: Organizational Culture | Healthcare Leadership | Hospice Leadership | Accountability | Leadership Development | Workplace Culture | Organizational Behavior | Purpose-Driven Leadership | Culture Change

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

The hospice moratorium may eventually end—but CMS scrutiny of hospice is likely here to stay.

In Part Two of The Hospice Moratorium: What CMS Is Really Signaling About the Future, Chris Comeaux and Cordt Kassner continue their conversation with Dr. Jennifer Kennedy, Vice President for Quality, Standards and Compliance at CHAP, about what hospice leaders should expect when the moratorium is lifted—and how organizations should prepare now.

The conversation explores increased CMS enrollment scrutiny, changes of ownership, audits, SSVI, compliance programs, and the growing role of data and AI in identifying fraud and abuse. Jennifer emphasizes that quality and compliance must work hand-in-hand and that hospices should begin treating audits and regulatory readiness as part of the cost of doing business.

But greater regulation raises an important question: Can CMS become precise enough to eliminate bad actors without penalizing high-quality providers? The discussion examines how better data and AI could help regulators target fraud more effectively while protecting access, innovation, and legitimate hospice organizations.

Most importantly, Jennifer reminds leaders that compliance cannot overshadow the mission. Even in a more regulated future, hospice must remain centered on compassionate, patient-centered care and what matters most to the patient.

In this episode:

• What could happen when the hospice moratorium ends
• Why CMS scrutiny is likely to increase
• Building a culture of compliance and quality
• Why hospices should budget for more audits
• SSVI and the future of hospice oversight
• Using AI and data to better identify fraud and abuse
• Protecting legitimate providers from regulatory overreach
• Keeping compassion at the center of hospice care

🎧 Subscribe to TCNtalks | Anatomy of Leadership for conversations helping healthcare and hospice leaders navigate what’s next.

Guest: Dr. Jennifer Kennedy, Vice President, Quality, Compliance and Standards with CHAP

Co-Host: Cordt Kassner, PHD, Publisher, Hospice & Palliative Care Today

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of Teleios, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

The hospice moratorium may be temporary—but the changes it signals for hospice oversight could be permanent.

In Part One of The Hospice Moratorium: What CMS Is Really Signaling About the Future, Chris Comeaux and Cordt Kassner, PhD, are joined by Dr. Jennifer Kennedy, Vice President for Quality, Standards and Compliance at CHAP, to unpack why CMS implemented the hospice moratorium and what it could mean for the future of the Medicare hospice benefit.

The conversation explores the growing federal focus on fraud and abuse, rapid hospice market expansion, Medicare enrollment, accreditation oversight, and increasingly sophisticated screening of providers. Jennifer also explains why she believes the moratorium could be extended—and why CMS scrutiny is unlikely to disappear when the moratorium eventually ends.

But there’s another side to the crackdown: legitimate hospice providers can get caught in the same regulatory net designed to stop bad actors. What happens when high-quality organizations want to expand into rural or underserved communities but can’t? And can CMS become precise enough to protect access while aggressively pursuing fraud?

In this episode:

• What the CMS hospice moratorium actually means
• Why fraud and rapid market expansion triggered increased scrutiny
• Whether the moratorium could be extended
• The role of accreditation and enrollment screening
• How legitimate hospice providers may be unintentionally affected
• Why quality and compliance will define the next era of hospice oversight

Guest: Dr. Jennifer Kennedy,

Co-Host: Cordt Kassner, PHD, Publisher, Hospice & Palliative Care Today

Host: Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of Teleios, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast

What if the frustration, anger, and resistance showing up in your organization aren't signs of disengagement—but signals that your people still deeply care?

In Part Two of From Zombies to Zealots: Cultivating Passion and Purpose in Healthcare Leadership, host Chris Comeaux continues his thought-provoking conversation with DJ Mitsch, author, master coach, and founder of the Healthcare Coaching Institute, and Tasha Walsh, CEO and Executive Director of ConnectionsPlus Healthcare + Hospice.

Healthcare and hospice professionals often enter the field because they feel called to the work. But regulations, audits, documentation requirements, productivity pressures, and constant organizational change can gradually disconnect people from that deeper sense of purpose. DJ challenges leaders to recognize what happens when meaningful, purpose-driven work becomes dominated by the language of compliance rather than creation.

Using the real-world example of hospice audits and documentation pressure, the conversation explores how fear of financial clawbacks and increased scrutiny can ripple through an organization and contribute to caregiver burnout. Rather than ignoring those emotions, DJ and Tasha encourage leaders to acknowledge them—and use anger, fear, frustration, and even pushback as valuable information.

As DJ explains, anger can become fuel for change. Tasha takes that idea further: what lies beneath someone's frustration may be a deep commitment to patients, coworkers, or the mission. Effective leaders learn to uncover that meaning, transform emotional energy into courage, and create space for difficult but necessary conversations.

In This Episode, You'll Discover:

• Why purpose-driven healthcare professionals can become disconnected from their calling
• How leaders can shift the organizational conversation from compliance to creation
• Why anger, fear, frustration, and resistance shouldn't automatically be labeled “negative”
• How to use emotion as information—and transform it into constructive action
• Why taking a breath and really listening can change the direction of a difficult interaction
• How leaders can create cultures where people feel safe bringing their authentic selves to work
• Why organizational culture is shaped by what leaders repeatedly tolerate, encourage, and create
• How healthcare leaders can become change agents rather than passive participants in a dysfunctional system

One of the most powerful ideas from the conversation is that naming what people are experiencing can reduce its hold over them. By giving language to fear, anger, and frustration, leaders can help their teams redirect that energy toward something more productive.

And ultimately, the goal isn't simply to build a more “resilient” workforce.

It's to create an environment where people are excited to come to life fully every day.

What is the culture you're creating helping your people become—zombies or zealots?

Guest:

Tasha Walsh, LCSW, PCC CEO/ED of Connections Plus Healthcare + Hospice

Darelyn DJ Mitsch, Author, Master Coach, and Chief Energy Officer, The Pyramid Resource Group, Home of the Healthcare Coaching Institute and Team Advantage Team Coaching

Host:

Chris Comeaux, President / CEO of TELEIOS, author of The Anatomy of Leadership

If this conversation resonates with you, like, subscribe, and share this episode with another healthcare, hospice, or business leader who is working to create a more engaged, purpose-driven culture.

Teleios Collaborative Network / https://www.teleioscn.org/tcntalkspodcast