Frequently Asked Questions (Hospice Services)
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here for general FAQ's
Whenever a life limiting illness is present, it is appropriate to
discuss options, such as hospice, with the patient and family. A hospice
team - nurses, social workers, spiritual counselors, and others -
will work with your doctor to help control your pain and any other
symptoms you might experience as your disease progresses.
Whenever a life-limiting illness is present, it is appropriate to
discuss options such as hospice that should be made by the patient,
in agreement with the family. Stopping therapy aimed at curing the
disease is often a difficult thing to do; the hospice team is sensitive
to this and other concerns and available to discuss them with the
patient and family.
Hospice does not make death come sooner, it allows death to come
naturally. Hospice also helps patients and their families understand
the dying process.
Any individual, of any age, who has a life-limiting illness is eligible
for hospice services. A physician will determine when an illness has
reached this stage. If the physician has not mentioned hospice and
the patient feels that the curative treatment no longer helps, the
patient and family should discuss the possibility of hospice with
the physician. Diseases that are cared for in hospice include but
are not limited to the following:
- Cancer
- Pulmonary disease (such as chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive
disease, emphysema, and fibrosis)
- Heart disease (such as congestive heart failure, heart attacks,
and hardening of the arteries to the heart)
- Kidney failure
- Multiple Sclerosis
- AIDS
- Peripheral vascular disease
- Amotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease)
- Alzheimer's disease
- Liver failure
- End stage cirrhosis
Many other diagnoses could be included on this list, and a discussion
of the diagnosis and prognosis with the physician will help in deciding
whether to choose hospice care. The hospice program staff are available
to help with this decision.
Hospice programs accept patients based on their need for care, not
their ability to pay. Both Medicare and Medicaid have a hospice benefit.
Blue Cross/Blue Shield and many other insurances also may have a hospice
benefit.
No, hospice teams work with your doctor to develop a plan of care
designed to help you maintain dignity and the best quality of life
through this stressful period.
Hospice is a philosophy and a concept, not a place, so it comes to
you. A majority of hospice patients are cared for in their own homes.
If hospital care or nursing home care is needed, the hospice will
make arrangements that you agree with. Hospice also services patients
in Skilled Nursing Home Facilities and Adult Foster Care Homes. Some
programs operate their own home-like facilities.
Hospice believes that emotional and spiritual pain are just as important
and in need of attention as physical pain, so hospice can address
each of these issues. Hospice nurses and doctors have expertise in
pain and symptom control. They continually remain up to date on the
latest medications. In addition, physical and occupational therapists
can help patients be as mobile and self-sufficient as they wish, and
they are often joined by specialists in music therapy, art therapy,
massage and diet counseling. Hospice is not about dying as much as
it is living fully until we die.
Patients in pain need medication to make them comfortable. This is
very different from people taking drugs to get high. Many studies
have been done on patients who have had to take pain medication for
long periods tof time, and none of these patients become addicted
to drugs. For these patients, when the pain was gone, the medication
was no longer needed or wanted. With addiction, there is a craving
for a drug to get high, which has nothing to do with the prevention
or control of pain.
As long as the doctor verifies that the disease remains a terminal
disease, hospice services will continue to be provided.
Since the selection of hospice care is a choice of the patient, the
patient may also choose to stop end of life care at any time. When
you state that those services are no longer desired, the hospice will
notify your insurance company and help you make other arrangements.
Hospice believes in maintaining the best possible quality of life,
and the hospice team focuses on providing the services that best meet
the needs of the patient and the family. With this goal in mind, the
hospice team also works to maintain an atmosphere in which patients
and families feel comfortable asking questions or expressing concerns.
Hospices around the country work together to make sure that traveling
hospice patients are cared for anywhere they travel in the United
States. Generally, the hospice programs communicate extensively with
each other to make sure that the traveling patient has similar care
available at the travel destination and that the patient's needs and
treatment preferences are known and are met wherever the patient is.
Yes. Hospice workers guide patients and their families and friends
to a clear understanding of what is happening, all the time. It is
a goal of hospice care to remove some of the mystery of the dying
process and to assure that help will be available during and after
the death.
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