F.A.Qs
What is Hospice care?
Hospice is a philosophy of care focused on comfort and quality of life, intended to give seriously ill patients and their loved ones meaningful time together when the focus is on the people, not the disease.
Hospice Care is Not Limited to Six-months of Service.
The Medicare Hospice Benefit requires that a terminally-ill patient have a prognosis of six months or less: There is not a six-month limit to hospice care services.
Hospice eligibility requirements should not be confused with length of service.
A patient in the final phase of life may receive hospice care for as long as necessary when a physician certifies that he or she continues to meet eligibility requirements.
Under the Medicare Hospice Benefit, two 90-day periods of care (a total of six months) are followed by an unlimited number of 60-day periods.
Hospice Care is Not Limited to Six-months of Service.
What Services Does Hospice Provide?
At Devinity Hospice, we work closely with our patients’ doctors. We partner with hospitals, nursing homes, insurers and community-based organizations to address the discomfort, fears and high expenses that often accompany an incurable illness. This approach meets the needs of our patients and their families and helps manage care transitions: from hospital to home, from curative to palliative, from chronic to advanced.
Where is Hospice Care Provided?
We provide hospice care in patients’ homes, hospital beds, nursing homes and assisted living communities/residential care facilities—wherever people can benefit from comfort care. The goal is to support patients and manage their care in the setting they consider home.
When is the right time to ask about hospice?
One of the challenges for family members and caregivers of people who are near the end of life is knowing when it is time to consider hospice. In making this decision, consider these questions:
Despite good medical care, have our loved one’s condition and symptoms progressed to the point that they cannot be adequately controlled?
Has our loved one endured multiple hospitalizations, emergency department visits or repeated use of other healthcare services?
Has the attending physician or specialist said there is nothing more that can be done to slow or cure the condition?
Has our loved one indicated that the side effects of medical treatments outweigh the benefits? Your loved one’s physician can play a key role in determining, from a medical standpoint, if the patient is clinically appropriate for hospice. Using a variety of medical criteria and guidelines—which vary according to specific illness—the physician can determine whether hospice is a viable choice. Alternatively, you or your loved one can call a hospice provider for a free evaluation of hospice eligibility. If the patient is hospice appropriate, the hospice provider can help you have the conversation with your physician.