Elevation Hospice Care
A type of health care that focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient’s pain and symptoms and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs at the end of life.
What is Hospice Care?
Dedicated to ensuring the patient’s last few months, weeks, or days are lived in comfort and dignity.
Hospice care is a special kind of care that focuses on the quality of life for people and their caregivers who are experiencing advanced, life-limiting illnesses. Hospice care provides compassionate care for people in the last phases of incurable disease so that they may live as fully and comfortably as possible.
Hospice services include:
- Time and services of the care team, including visits to the patient’s location by the hospice physician, nurse, medical social worker, home health aide, and chaplain/spiritual adviser
- Medication for symptom control or pain relief
- Medical equipment like wheelchairs or walkers and medical supplies like bandages and catheters
- Physical and occupational therapy
- Speech-language pathology services
- Dietary counseling
- Any other Medicare-covered services needed to manage pain and other symptoms related to the terminal illness, as recommended by the hospice team.
- Short-term inpatient care (e.g., when adequate pain and symptom management cannot be achieved in the home setting)
- Short-term respite care (e.g., temporary relief from caregiving to avoid or address “caregiver burnout”)
- Grief and loss counseling for the patient and loved ones
Frequently Asked Questions
About Hospice Care
Answers to common questions can be found here.
When the burden of treatment outweighs the benefits and/or the patient has experienced notable decline and multiple hospitalizations over the last several months, he or she might be ready for hospice. Other indications include:
- Repeat trips to the emergency room (ER)
- Unrelieved pain
- Frequent infections
- Sudden or progressive decline in physical functioning and eating
- Weight loss/difficulty swallowing
- Shortness of breath/oxygen dependence
A patient is eligible to receive hospice services when their illness is terminal. A physician determines the patient’s life expectancy is six months or less if the disease runs its ordinary course. In addition, the patient must meet Medicare’s disease-specific criteria.
Hospice is for people who have a limited life expectancy and patients whose condition is such that a doctor would not be surprised if the patient died within the next six months. This doesn’t mean the patient will die in the next six months; it simply means that he or she has a condition that makes passing a realistic possibility.
When treatment options for a disease have been exhausted or are no longer working, hospice provides a way for people to live in comfort, peace, and dignity without curative care. Hospice isn’t about giving up, but about improving the quality of a patient’s life by being free of pain, surrounded by family, and in the comfort of their home.
Finding care in assisted living facilities, nursing homes, or hospitals may be more complicated during COVID-19. However, these facilities may continue to update their services and policies to comply with state departments of health and CDC guidelines to protect the health and safety of people receiving care and the staff providing care. Learn more from the CDC.
If you have questions or concerns about these uncertain times, one of Elevation’s social workers or care managers will be glad to assist you by calling (720) 619-4274.
Anyone can request a hospice evaluation at no cost. A physician may make the referral or provide several options and let the patient/family decide. The physician must certify to the hospice provider that the patient is eligible and has a prognosis of six months or less.
When a referral is made, the hospice provider makes an appointment (the same day or on a convenient date) to meet with the patient and family. The admissions nurse evaluates the patient, answers the family member’s questions, and creates a plan of care that reflects the patient/family’s wishes. If the discussion goes well and the family is ready, they sign admission paperwork, and the hospice team begins to visit.
The hospice nurse creates a plan of care with the patient’s and family’s input designed to meet the patient’s needs and determines the frequency of visits by the hospice staff. A hospice nurse can make additional visits if needed, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
A person may withdraw from the hospice program for various reasons, such as resuming aggressive, curative treatment or pursuing experimental measures. Also, patients often improve with hospice services because the focus of their care shifts to comfort, pain relief, symptom management, and quality of life. They still have a terminal illness, but their symptoms are so improved that they no longer qualify for hospice services. A hospice must discharge a patient whose underlying disease or condition is no longer considered terminal. Patients can revoke hospice care for any reason and return at any time, as long as their doctor recertifies their eligibility.
While a patient is not required to sign a DNR order before being admitted to hospice, some hospice providers may ask you to sign the order. However, as long as the patient and his family understand that hospice offers palliative care rather than curative care, any Medicare-certified hospice will not ask the patient to sign the DNR order.
The term advance directive describes two types of legal documents that enable individuals to plan for and communicate their end-of-life wishes if they can no longer express informed consent. These two documents are a living will and a medical power of attorney.
Living Will: Allows an individual to document their wishes concerning medical treatments at the end of life.
Medical Power of Attorney: This allows an individual to appoint a person they trust as their healthcare agent (or surrogate decision-maker), who is authorized to make medical decisions on their behalf.
While hospice strives to manage pain and other symptoms outside of the hospital setting, the patient always has the choice to go to a hospital. The Medicare hospice benefit covers short-term general inpatient care in the hospital when a patient’s symptoms can no longer be managed in another care setting. A written agreement between the hospital and hospice provider is required, and the patient and/or family should always contact the hospice nurse before going to the hospital.
A hospice patient may continue to see their PCP. In addition, hospice physicians and team members work with the patient’s PCP to ensure their clinical and emotional needs are being met and that their care is being carried out appropriately. Their PCP chooses his or her level of participation in their care. A patient must get permission from their hospice provider to see any other physicians/specialists outside their PCP for their terminal condition.
Unlike home health, there is no homebound rule for hospice patients. However, they are encouraged to travel outside of the home, if they are able, to promote quality of life.
Home health care patients require skilled care and must show improvement from this care. When these goals are no longer realistic, the patient can be transferred to hospice care. In addition, home health and hospice can provide services if the home health diagnosis is unrelated to the hospice diagnosis.
Nursing homes focus on routine daily care and rehabilitation. Nursing home patients who receive hospice services get additional, customized support determined by their plan of care, which focuses on the physical, emotional, and spiritual end-of-life needs of patients and their families.
How the Elevation Hospice Care Team Works
Physician, Nurse, Hospice Aide, Social Worker, Chaplain, Volunteer, and Bereavement Coordinator
The Elevation Hospice Care team is a group of specially trained healthcare professionals who ensure that a hospice patient’s last few months, weeks, or days are lived in comfort and dignity. This interdisciplinary team includes a Physician, Nurse, Hospice Aide, Social Worker, Chaplain, Volunteer, and Bereavement Coordinator.
Hospice Patient Referral Form
If you’d like to know more, or to discuss your requirements, please call us at
(720) 608-2181 (24/7 for Service in Colorado)
(801) 610-1868 (24/7 for Service in Utah)
Elevation Hospice Is Here to Help.
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