Senior Full Stack Software Engineer

Empassion, Karoo Health partner to support heart disease patients approaching end-of-life. March 18, 2026 Empassion Health, a network of at-home palliative care and hospice providers in 45 states, and Karoo Health, a network of around 600 cardiac providers in 11 states, are formalizing a partnership to provide a continuum of care to cardiac patients nearing the end of their lives. The strategic alliance, disclosed Tuesday, allows each company to continue what it does best but in a coordinated fashion. "Empassion is world-class at caring for patients with serious illness, and Karoo is world-class at managing cardiovascular disease," Chase Knight, chief growth officer at Empassion, said in a statement. "Patients benefit when each organization focuses on what it does best, with a clear transition point when the patient's illness advances." Upon realizing that they had an overlap of 600 patients, leaders of Empassion and Karoo decided earlier in 2026 to test whether they could realize benefits from closer coordination of care, Robin Heffernan, Empassion co-founder and CEO, told McKnights Home Care Daily Pulse. "Empassion is really good at avoiding hospitalization for patients in this last year of life," she said. "Karoo and the payer Zing saw that if we can transition patients to Empassion, they can avoid hospitalization. From the patient and caregiver perspective, they have a much better experience and have more supportive services in the home. We think this is a demonstration that you can get better outcomes for the payer and do the right thing for the patient." After running a six-week pilot of their new model, the companies decided to make it official, Heffernan said. Their alliance aims to better support patients living with advanced cardiovascular and other serious diseases as their conditions become more advanced. Karoo and Empassion will work closely together to help patients and caregivers more easily access the expertise of each provider as needed. "Patients with heart disease typically live with their condition for years, their needs change, and escalations occur along the way," Ian Koons, CEO of Karoo, said in a statement. "Karoo intervenes in these moments to improve outcomes while still managing cost. When their illness progresses to an advanced stage, Empassion ensures those patients receive the specialized support they deserve." Besides providing good patient care, the alliance offers a value-based care selling point, the companies noted. "As value-based care continues expanding, health plans are increasingly seeking partners that can coordinate effectively across specialty programs while maintaining clear accountability for patient care," the companies said in a press release. "The Karoo and Empassion partnership provides a structured model that allows care ownership to transition smoothly as patient needs evolve."

Empassion Health has launched Empassion Assured, the first independent certification programme for hospice providers, addressing widespread fraud that cost Medicare $3.4 billion in bogus claims in fiscal year 2023. The certification establishes new benchmarks for trust and transparency in end-of-life care. The programme evaluates hospice providers on care delivery, eligibility verification, compliance and patient experience outcomes, going beyond basic licensure requirements. Certified agencies receive official badging for marketing and payer communications. Recent enforcement actions by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Department of Justice have exposed systemic hospice fraud, including enrolling ineligible patients and billing for services not delivered. Empassion Assured aims to help payers and healthcare providers confidently refer vulnerable patients to trustworthy hospice agencies whilst enabling high-quality providers to differentiate themselves.