What is Hospice and Palliative Care?
What is Hospice and Palliative Care?
Hospice and palliative care involves a team-oriented approach to expert medical care, pain management, and spiritual support tailored to meet the patient's needs and wishes. Support is provided to the patient's loved ones as well. At the center of hospice and palliative care is the belief that each of us has the right to die pain-free and with dignity, and our families will receive the necessary support to allow us to do so.
Hospice focuses on caring, not curing and, in most cases, care is provided in the patient's home. Hospice services are available to patients of any age, religion, race or illness. Hospice care is covered under Medicare, Medicaid, most private insurance plans, HMOs, and other managed care organizations.
Medicare has three eligibility criteria:
The patient's doctor and the hospice medical doctor use their best judgment to certify that the patient is terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months or less;
The patient chooses to receive hospice care rather than curative treatments for their illness; and
The patient enrolls in a Medicare-approved hospice program.
Typically, hospice care starts after a formal request or 'referral' is made by the patient's doctor. Usually, care is ready to begin within a day or two of a referral. However, in urgent situations, service may begin sooner.
Typically, a family member serves as the primary caregiver and, when appropriate, helps make decisions for the terminally ill patient. Members of the hospice team make regular visits to assess that patient and provide additional care or other services. Hospice staff is on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The hospice team develops a care plan that meets each patient's individual needs for pain management and symptom control. The team usually consists of:
The patient's personal physician;
Hospice physician (or medical director);
Nurses;
Home health aides;
Social workers;
Clergy or other counselors;
Trained volunteers; and
Speech, physical, and occupational therapists, if needed
Among its major responsibilities, the interdisciplinary hospice team;
Manages the patient's pain and symptoms;
Assists the patient with the emotional, psychosocial and spiritual aspects of dying;
Provides needed drugs, medical supplies, and equipment;
Coaches the family on how to care for the patient;
Makes short-term inpatient care available when pain or symptoms become too difficult to manage at home, or the caregiver needs respite time; and
Provides bereavement care and counseling to surviving family and friends.
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