New Grants Fuel Psychedelic End-of-Life, Palliative Care Innovation
•February 10, 2026
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Why It Matters
By channeling over half a million dollars into controlled psychedelic research, the program could accelerate evidence‑based integration of these therapies into hospice care, addressing existential distress and opening new reimbursement pathways.
Key Takeaways
- •HHCM grants $566,260 to seven hospice and psychedelic groups.
- •Projects target psilocybin, ketamine, and spiritual care integration.
- •Trials focus on brain tumor patients and rural underserved populations.
- •Emphasis on safety protocols, consent, and reimbursement pathways.
- •Collaboration spans Mayo Clinic, University of Washington, and community pilots.
Pulse Analysis
The convergence of psychedelic science and hospice medicine has moved from fringe experiments to mainstream attention in recent years. Clinical studies suggest that psilocybin and ketamine can alleviate existential anxiety, depression, and fear of death among patients with terminal illnesses. Yet regulatory uncertainty, limited reimbursement structures, and a lack of standardized training have kept widespread adoption at bay. As the mental‑health and palliative‑care sectors seek novel interventions, investors and policymakers are watching the emerging evidence base closely, hoping to balance compassionate care with rigorous safety standards.
Against this backdrop, Healing Hearts Changing Minds launched the Walking Each Other Home fund, allocating $566,260 to seven diverse organizations. The Mayo Clinic will run a psilocybin‑assisted trial for brain‑tumor patients, while the University of Washington pilots group‑based retreats for cancer‑related anxiety. Community partners such as Red Willow Hospice and the Institute for Rural Psychedelic Care focus on home‑based ketamine‑assisted psychotherapy for underserved, rural populations. Each project is required to implement consent protocols, ethical guardrails, and data‑collection frameworks, directly addressing the safety and reimbursement gaps that have hampered prior efforts.
If the funded studies demonstrate reproducible benefits, they could reshape payer policies and create viable billing codes for psychedelic end‑of‑life care. Standardized training curricula and safety guidelines emerging from these pilots would provide a template for other hospice providers nationwide. Moreover, the involvement of high‑profile institutions like the Mayo Clinic lends credibility, potentially accelerating FDA‑guided pathways and attracting additional private capital. In sum, the grant program not only fuels immediate research but also lays the groundwork for a sustainable, evidence‑driven market where psychedelic therapies become a legitimate tool in palliative care.
New Grants Fuel Psychedelic End-of-Life, Palliative Care Innovation
Seven organizations, including hospice and palliative care providers, are participating in a new grant program intended to examine safe, effective utilization of psychedelic therapies at the end of life.
The grant program was recently unveiled by the nonprofit Healing Hearts Changing Minds Inc. (HHCM). Dubbed as Walking Each Other Home: A Fund to Promote Psychedelic Compassion for End-of-Life Care, the program has granted more than half a million dollars to hospice, palliative, psychedelic and trauma care providers across the country.
A main goal is to expand research efforts that examine the impacts of end-of-life psychedelic therapies, according to Robert Ansin, founder of HHCM. These therapies have been associated with improved quality and reduced existential distress, but more data are needed to establish efficacy and patient safety guardrails, he said.
“Psychedelic science helps patients in end-of-life situations,” Ansin told Hospice News. “Imagine if we could just try to move the needle a little bit and empower more vigorous studies. If done right, safely and with guardrails, this might be another tool to help hospice care workers help patients and families to live better lives, as opposed to being paralyzed in fear.”
Hospice care and psychedelic science represent two of the most misunderstood fields, Ansin said. More evidence is needed to illustrate the various benefits of these increasingly intersecting fields, he stated.
The program received proposals from more than two dozen leaders in palliative care, hospice medicine, spiritual care, psychedelic research and end-of-life advocacy. Ultimately, seven organizations were granted a total of $566,260. The funding fuels each organizations’ psychedelic therapy interventions that are working to guide safe, effective and improved utilization.
“If we’re going to be giving these psychedelic therapies to people with a terminal diagnosis, then we have a real responsibility to do everything we can to make sure there’s utter consent, there’s guardrails, there’s ethics and there’s best practice,” Ansin said. “The sooner we can build an infrastructure of safety, the better.”
Grantees include these organizations:
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End of Life Psychedelic Care (EOLPC)
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Heal Ukraine Trauma (serving Cambridge, Massachusetts and Kyiv, Ukraine)
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Institute for Rural Psychedelic Care (IRPC)
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Mayo Clinic
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The Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI) and the Pravan Foundation
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Red Willow Hospice
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University of Washington
The research project at Red Willow Hospice in New Mexico is examining ways to train hospice staff providing KAP therapies. Red Willow Hospice’s geographic region predominantly spans underserved rural patient populations in its home state.
Research initiatives at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, will include a clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted therapies among patients with brain tumors. The clinical trial will dig into the potential for these therapies to address the existential distress often experienced by brain cancer patients with high mortality rates.
A research pilot at the University of Washington is also examining the potential impacts of psilocybin therapies among patients with cancer. The research will look at the different ways that psychedelic treatments can be used to address cancer-related anxiety and depression in a group setting during a multi-day retreat.
EOLPC and IRPC have collaborated with Ligare to launch a home-based ketamine and spiritual care pilot program. The project will test an innovative care model for underserved, homebound palliative and hospice patients with psychological and existential end-of-life distress.
The collaborative pilot will roll out across three sites in Atlanta, Chicago and Humboldt County, California. About 15 patients will participate in the pilot, with each site including an approach that pairs palliative medicine physicians with spiritual care providers.
The program is designed to address a critical “systems-level gap” when it comes to reimbursement and sustainability, according to Christine Caldwell, founder and executive director of EOLPC. Palliative, hospice and psychedelic care providers lack payment pathways that fuel spiritual care innovation, Caldwell said. Without reimbursement and regulatory structures, providers also do not have standardized training and patient safety protocols at national levels.
“A big aspect of this is looking at what are those relationships that need to be forged,” Caldwell told Hospice News. “How do you get reimbursement? What does the training look like, or the clinical protocols? Ours is a real, pragmatic, community-based pilot. Another aspect for hospices is the understanding of the value of spiritual care they provide. The spiritual component is so critical to address fears of death, reduce anxiety or depression, and it’s part of patients’ intentions for a psychedelic journey.”
In addition to the collaboration with EOLPC, the Institute for Rural Psychedelic Care is launching a project to provide ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) and narrative medicine to rural-based terminally ill patients. Through the project, patients will receive KAP treatments and engage in interviews about their experiences for a documentary.
Among the goals is to learn more about the potential for psychedelic therapies to help ease death anxiety, according to Dr. Michael Fratkin, board president of IRPC. Fratkin is also a palliative care physician at the Humboldt Center for New Growth and the physician liaison of the Traditional Healers and Natural Helpers for the Hoopa Valley Tribe in California.
The new grant project comes at a time of growing interest and rising demand for safe psychedelic guidance, he said in a recent Hospice News Elevate podcast.
“It’s a desire to make a difference in a space that I call home – where end-of-life, palliative care and psychedelic care overlap,” Fratkin told Hospice News during the podcast. “It’s better than half a million dollars in investment in a diversity of projects and communities around the country. They signify a lot of interest in continuing to look at this as a different than normal kind of initiative inspired by kindness, compassion, responsibility and safety.”
The post New Grants Fuel Psychedelic End-of-Life, Palliative Care Innovation appeared first on Hospice News.
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