What is Hospice?
With pain and symptom management, as well as education and support, hospice care allows patients and families to focus on what is truly important When Life Matters Most.
It is a unique health care approach in which the patient and family are the focus, not the disease. Hospice care helps patients and their families make the most of the time that remains.
Hospice is a team of specially trained health care professionals caring for the patient and relieving anxiety for the caregiver/family. Our hospice support team helps patients and families with pain and symptom management, social, emotional, and grief issues. Hospice brings comfort and quality to the remaining months, weeks, and days.
Who is Eligible for Hospice?
Hospice care is for people who have a life-limiting illness with a life expectancy of six months or less, and have chosen to focus on comfort care over treatment.
Diagnoses commonly associated with hospice care include these and other terminal diseases:
- Heart Disease
- Respiratory Diseases
- AIDS/HIV
- Alzheimer’s/Dementia
- Liver/Renal Failure
- Neurologic Diseases
- Cancer
- Stroke or Coma
Hospice works with the patient and family to develop a plan of care specific to their disease and individual needs. Eligibility criteria includes frequent hospitalizations, progressive weight loss, deteriorating mental abilities, frequent infections, and/or an overall decline in condition.
Where is Hospice Care Provided?
Because hospice is a plan of care, not a place, patients may receive hospice care wherever they call home:
- Home or Apartment
- A Relative or Friend’s Home
- Assisted Living Facility
- Nursing Home
When medically necessary, our services are also available to hospitalized individuals.
Who Provides Hospice Care?
Our hospice team is a group of highly skilled hospice professionals and community resources. Because hospice focuses on the patient and family and not the disease, our hospice team creates an individualized care plan based on the specific needs, wishes, and values of the patient and family.
This comprehensive plan of care is directed by the patient and carried out by our hospice team, which may include but is not limited to:
- Patient and Family
- Experienced Nurses
- Chaplain/Bereavement Counselor
- Patient’s Physician
- Social Worker
- Medical Director
- Hospice Aides
- Trained Volunteers
Who Pays for Hospice Care?
Hospice is covered under the Hospice Medicare Benefit, most Medicaid plans, and many private insurance plans. Most plans cover hospice care and the medications, medical supplies, and medical equipment related to the hospice prognosis.
Earlier referrals to hospice help patients and families access and receive the maximum benefit and full scope of hospice services.