Hospice Care - for the Patient and the Family

Article submitted by Joe O'Neal with O2Neal Medical, Inc.
For more information, he can be reached at 205-989-9902.

Article submitted by Sue May at Canon Hospice.
For more information, she can be reached at 504-818-2723.

Hospice helps patients and families experience peace, comfort, and caring during one of life's toughest transitions. Hospice respects the patient's wish to die with dignity, surrounded by the people they love.

A team of doctors, nurses, certified nursing assistants, social workers, volunteers, and chaplains work together to focus on individual and family needs, and to emphasize the quality of life. We work to eliminate the physical pain associated with an illness, as well as provide psychological, spiritual, and emotional support so patients and families can spend quality time together.

Any person, regardless of income, who faces an incurable illness with a prognosis of six months or less, as well as family members who are caring for a dying person, may receive Hospice services. A person may call Hospice directly, or be referred by a doctor, family member, volunteer hospice, local hospital, but ultimately a physician must give the order for hospice care.

Medicaid and Medicare offer special hospice benefits, and most private insurances cover hospice care. Hospice services also include medications and equipment that will be required to provided comfort to the patient. By using these benefits the financial burdens placed on a family at this time are often remedied.

Hospice originated as a home care program, but there are other levels of care offered to assist in the patient's care. If a patient's condition is such that more intense management of symptoms is required, they can be admitted to an Inpatient Unit. Stays here are designed to be short in duration with the focus to stabilize the patient's condition so they may return to their regular care setting. Hospice also provides Respite care which is a five day period of inpatient care. This Respite Benefit can be utilized once within each period of care (as designated by Medicare). This provides a break for the caregiver and allows the patient to continue to receive quality 24 hour care.