What Is Special About Hospice Care? Hospice care helps people live their lives to the fullest extent possible. We do this by relieving physical pain and other discomfort, and by providing emotional support to patients and their loves ones. Hospice care enables people to stay at home as well as continue their daily routines and favorite activities for as long as possible. Most importantly, hospice care emphasizes each person's choice to decide their plan of care and to provide information to support patients and families in making well-informed decisions. The patient and the family work with the hospice team to determine the help that is needed. Our care and services recognize the integrity and value of each family's lifestyle, traditions, cultural and spiritual beliefs.
Who Is Eligible For Hospice Care? *  Those living with an advanced life-limiting illness and are considering a transition in the focus of care from cure to comfort and symptom control. *  Hospice services are designed to assist people living with a variety of illnesses and conditions, including cancer, heart disease, stroke, pulmonary disease, Alzheimer's disease, neurological disease, AIDS and others.
What Services Do We Provide? *  A team of professionals, including a physician, a registered nurse, a certified nursing assistant, counselor, chaplain and trained volunteer are available to provide care. *  Emotional support is available to loved ones during the illness and for thirteen months following the death of a loved one. *  Medications and medical equipment related to the life-limiting illness are supplied as part of covered hospice benefits.  *  Urgent care services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. *  To help ease the responsibility of continuing care, respite care is available for a few days should the caregivers need to take a brief time away from daily care. *  Volunteers are available to offer companionship for patients, offering family members a chance for time to themselves. *  Grief support is provided, free of charge, to loved ones for thirteen months after death.
How Is Hospice Paid? Medicare and Medicaid include a benefit that covers hospice services. Most private insurance provides coverage for hospice care. Some patients may use their own financial resources to pay the cost of hospice. Contributions may be made to assist in the provision of hospice care for those patients who have no available source of payment and do not qualify for financial assistance.
Where Is Hospice Care Provided? Hospice is not a place. Rather it is a philosophy of care that can be provided wherever a patient/family may choose: home, a long term care or assisted living facility, or in an inpatient hospice facility. Some of our patients will move between home and the inpatient facility if they need care that cannot be provided at home.
When Is It Time To Begin Conversation With Patients And Families About Hospice? At any time, after the diagnosis of a life-limiting illness, it is appropriate to discuss care options with the patient's doctor, including hospice. The discussion becomes even more important if any of the following circumstances are present: *  Patient is no longer responding as expected or anticipated to the treatments for the disease. *  Patient is expressing concern that the burden of treatment is outweighing the benefits. *  Patient is experiencing persistent difficulty with pain and symptom control. *  Patient is despondent about his/her condition and quality of life, and it is unlikely to improve.