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Hospice offers services to patients who have a terminal illness with a limited life expectancy and whose physician has determined the goal of treatment is palliative care (treating symptoms) versus curative care (treating disease). Hospice patients do not have to be homebound, yet patients must be aware of their condition and reside within the Hospice service area.
No patient will be denied Hospice care because of race, color, creed, age, national origin, gender, handicap, religion, genetic makeup, marital status, diagnosis, sexual preference, or because of an inability to pay for Hospice services.
In its earliest origins, Hospice means a place of shelter for travelers on a difficult journey. For patients, families and friends faced with a terminal illness, Hospice means a place to turn and a team of people to be by your side.
Often people think of home care when they think of Hospice, and in many ways it is that, and more.
Hospice is an innovation in care built upon the concept of individual choice, and one of the choices Hospice provides is the ability for a patient with a life-limiting illness to stay at home surrounded by family and friends.
Hospice brings together a team of specially trained professionals and volunteers who work with the patient’s doctor to provide a plan of care woven with the dignity of choice and power of love.
Making no attempt to hasten or delay death, Hospice focuses on controlling the patient’s pain and symptoms, while helping family and friends cope with the stress and emotions illness can bring.
From the first days of a life-limiting illness to long past the loss of a loved one, Hospice offers a mainstay of resources and respite, help and hope to affirm a meaningful quality of life for all at the journey’s end.
SERVICES AND SUPPORT
Hospice provides emotional, physical and spiritual support and services for patients, family and friends faced with a life-limiting illness. Hospice services most often enable a patient to be at home or in an inpatient facility surrounded by family and friends. With the primary focus being to control the pain and manage the symptoms, Hospice services may include anything from providing medical services and equipment to transportation, daily activity assistance, speech or occupational therapy, dietary counseling, emotional support, bereavement counseling and many others as needed by patient and family.
Hospice offers complete service, resources and support including:
- 24-hour/7-day a week on-call assistance
- Skilled nursing care
- Pain management
- Symptom control
- Medical supplies
- Medical social services
- Caregiver respite
- Homemaker assistance
- In-home care
- Inpatient facility care
- Spiritual support
- Counseling, including dietary
- Physical, occupational, respiratory and speech therapy
- Bereavement services
FOUR LEVELS OF CARE
Routine Home Care is provided in the residential setting, usually a patient’s home or a long-term care facility, though care could be provided in a group home or any other residential setting. Hospice services are provided on an intermittent basis according to the needs, frequency and intensity identified in the Plan of Care.
Inpatient Care designed for short-term, acute needs is provided in an inpatient unit, hospital or skilled nursing facility when a patient’s symptoms cannot be managed in the residential setting with the “routine home care” level of care.
Respite Care provides short-term relief to a patient’s primary caregivers by transferring the patient to a Hospice inpatient unit, hospital or skilled facility for up to five days.
Continuous Care is provided in a residential setting when the patient is in crisis and symptoms cannot be managed with the “routine home care” level of care. This level of continuous care may be initiated to prevent transfer to an inpatient setting.
Hospice promises confidential comfort and care, compassion and counseling when it’s needed most and where patients most want to be whether in a long-term care facility, in-patient residence or at home.
Hospice promises to affirm the power of choice and preserve a quality of life in every way possible.
Hospice promises to address the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of patients and their families, with a deep respect for the patient’s wishes at the heart of it all.
Hospice promises to be there, to help and to care.
Hospice philosophy respects the rights of patient and family:
- The right to enjoy the highest quality of life possible.
- The right to die with dignity, as dignity is perceived by the patient.
- The right to actively participate in managing the remaining life span, the dying process and the event of death.
- The right to remain a viable family member in the environment of choice.
- The right to have his/her needs considered on a personal, individual basis.
Hospice strives to achieve excellence in its set objectives:
- Good physical care and relief of pain and other symptoms during illness without great mental or physical incapacitation.
- Ongoing emotional support of patients and family caregivers throughout illness.
- Support of the patient’s participation as an active family member by enabling him/her to remain at home and by offering services to accommodate family relationships.
- Assistance to the patient and the family in working through the grieving process and other issues involved in serious illness, changes in lifestyle and loss.
- Assistance with the family’s healthy resolution of bereavement issues up to a year or more after the death of the patient as needed.
- Initiation and maintenance of an ongoing community Hospice education program to keep Hospice available to the families, friends and neighbors of our community.
You’re never alone, and you don’t have to shoulder the financial burden yourself either. Financial coverage is available through the Hospice Medicare Benefits, HMOs and private insurance companies. Patients who qualify for and are approved for Medicaid may have their care covered under this benefit.
Private Insurance Benefits
Many private insurance companies and HMOs provide coverage for Hospice services. The law mandates private insurance companies to provide a hospice benefit. For details, contact your insurance company.
Medicare Benefits
Hospice is available as a benefit under Medicare. Medicare beneficiaries who choose hospice care receive non-curative medical support and psychosocial services to help cope with both the symptoms of the terminal disease as well as the emotional and spiritual struggles of end-of-life issues. The Medicaid Hospice Benefit is identical to the Medicare Hospice Benefit in both services and reimbursement.
Patients entitled to benefits under Medicare Part A can choose Hospice care when they meet the Hospice admission criteria; basically, when the patient’s doctor and the Hospice Medical Director certify the patient prognosis is limited to months, not years. Medical needs unrelated to the Hospice diagnosis are covered under Standard Medicare Benefits.
