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When you’re referred to hospice, you’re not just receiving end-of-life medical care. You’re being welcomed into a team of healthcare professionals who are not only experienced and trained but also deeply passionate about helping patients and their loved ones during this transitional time. In close collaboration with the patient’s admitting physician, who plays a crucial role in guiding the patient’s care, this team works tirelessly to individualize the patient’s care plan. They stay in close contact with the physician throughout the patient’s care, ensuring that pain and symptoms are controlled. This active care enhances the patient’s quality of life as the end-of-life approaches.

Hospice is not just about medical care. It’s about quality of life. It gives patients their independence and control to the greatest extent possible. Hospice aims to make patients as pain-free, alert, comfortable, and active as possible for as long as possible. It’s about addressing patients’ and their families’ physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and cultural needs. This comprehensive support includes medical care, counseling, spiritual guidance, and assistance with baths and personal hygiene. It’s about providing comprehensive support in every aspect of life.

Hospice is also cost-effective for the patient and family in many ways. Hospice professionals continually assess the need for equipment and supplies that will promote comfort for the patient. The hospice benefit provides medical equipment related to the hospice diagnosis, such as oxygen, hospital beds, bedside commodes, air mattresses, wheelchairs, over-the-bed tables, and walkers. This cost-effective approach ensures that the patient’s comfort is not compromised due to financial constraints, providing you with financial security during this challenging time.

Also provided by the hospice benefit is payment for most prescribed medications related to the primary hospice diagnosis, for example, pain medication, medications for anxiety, constipation or diarrhea, and shortness of breath. This coverage ensures that you and your loved ones are relieved of the financial burden of these essential medications, providing you with the support you need during this difficult time.

Other supplies provided by hospice include diapers, pull-ups, wipes, bed pads, catheter supplies, mouth care supplies, skin care lotions, dressings, and wound care supplies.

Medicare plays a crucial role in hospice admissions. It has disease-specific guidelines known as LCDs that list vital conditions that must be present when determining that a patient has declined to the level approved by Medicare for hospice admission. These guidelines ensure that patients receive the appropriate level of care when they need it most.

Interestingly, with only a few exceptions, most all insurances follow the Medicare LCD Hospice guidelines.

Don’t hesitate to contact me, your physician, or the hospice of your choosing if you have questions about hospice care.

“I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” – William Penn

— Vickie C. Wacaster is a Patient and Hospice Advocate for Aveanna Hospice.