BackHospice and End-of-Life Care
Article submitted by Keith Weaver LCSW, JD, Administrator for Lighthouse Hospice and Tonya Bailey RN, BSN, CHPN, Director of Clinical Services for Lighthouse Hospice. If you have questions about hospice or wish to find out how hospice might help you or a loved one with your end-of-life care needs, please contact Lighthouse Hospice at (801) 562-CARE (2273) or 1-866-795-CARE.
Hospice and end-of-life care are topics most people don't think about until they're faced with making tough decisions for themselves, or for a loved one. The fact is that most Americans faced with a terminal illness find themselves uneducated or undereducated about their options for care.
Surveys show that the 2 most common desires for people at end-of-life are: 1) wanting to be pain-free and 2) preferring to be at home in a familiar and comfortable setting surrounded by family and loved ones. Hospice offers people both of these: the opportunity to be comfortable and as pain-free as possible, and have a dignified end-of-life with comfort and compassion in their place of their choice.
Hospice care is focused on comfort, not cure. Care provided centers around managing the pain and other symptoms associated with terminal illness. Hospice does not offer the patient more time, but rather helps them make the most of the time they have left. Hospice cares are team oriented involving physicians, nurses, aides, chaplains, social workers and volunteers as directed by the needs of the patient and family and within their framework of individual beliefs and desires. This also includes providing bereavement services for one year following the patient's death.
Hospice is available to any individual with a terminal illness and an expectation of six months or less to live. However, there is no limit on how long a patient can be on hospice services but some people get better and no longer are eligible. Hospice is not just for the final week of a patient's life. In fact, the longer a patient is on hospice services the more support, education, and preparedness the patient and family can receive from the trained hospice staff.
Medicare, Medicaid and most insurance providers pay for hospice services.