Why Hospice
From the National Hospice Organization
- Hospice offers help and support to the patient and family
on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week
basis. Patients
routinely receive periodic in-home services of a nurse, home
health aide, psychosocial
professional, and other menibers of
the hospice interdisciplinary team.
- Hospice treats the person, not the disease. Hospice professionals and volunteers address the
medical, social, psychological, and spiritual needs of the patient and faiinly.
- Hospice considers the entire family, not just the patient,
the "unit of care." Patients and
families are included in the
decision-making process, and bereavement counseling is
provided to
the family following the death of their loved one.
- Hospice offers palliative, rather than curative treatment.
Sophisticated methods of pain and
symptom control enable
the patient to live as fully and comfortably as possible.
- Hospice emphasizes quality, rather than length of life.
Hospice neither hastens nor postpones
death: it affirms life
and regards dying as a normal process.
- Hospice is a covered benefit under Medicare, Medicaid,
and most private insurance plans.
|
