home care - hospice services

Hospice professionals and volunteers provide physical, emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual support.

Hospice care is provided in a team approach which includes a physician, a nurse, a hospice aide, a social worker, chaplain, a bereavement counselor, and trained volunteers.

Patients with Medicare and Medicaid choose to use the hospice benefit that is available to them. Most insurance plans also cover hospice.

In addition to the visits from the hospice team, hospice services include:

• Short term in-home crisis care
• Medical equipment and supplies
• Medications to control pain and other symptom management

The patient’s physician and the hospice medical director will certify that the patient has a terminal condition with a life expectancy of 6 months or less, if the disease runs its normal course. The focus of care is quality of life and comfort care delivered compassionately by professionals who specialize in end of life challenges.