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Guidelines for Hospice Admission
The objectives of Hospice admissions include:
- Physical care and relief of pain and other symptoms without excessive mental or physical incapacitation.
- Ongoing and emotional support of the patient and family caregiver(s).
- Support of a patient's participation as an active family member by enabling patients to remain at home and by offering services to accommodate family relationships.
Hospice patients must meet the following criteria for admission:
- Terminal condition is due to a specific disease or a combination of diseases.
- A prognosis that can be spoken of in terms of "months."
- Patient and/or family have elected a course of palliative care.
- Patient and/or family agree not to treat terminal illness aggressively.
In addition to meeting other disease specific criteria, Hospice patients may also exhibit the following in the past two to three months:
- Decline/Decrease in Activities of Daily Living (ADL).
- Weight loss or decreased appetite.
- Decline/decrease in cognitive abilities.
- Observable changes in condition.
- Lack of response to treatment and worsening of symptoms of a chronic underlying disease.
Your Patient's Treatment Regimen:
- Is your patient unresponsive to curative therapies and treatment?
- Will the continuation of curative therapies and treatment increase your patient's suffering and discomfort?
- Will the continuation of curative therapies and treatment provide a positive change in your patient's medical condition?
- Will your patient need only episodic inpatient care?
- Could palliative care enhance your patient's comfort and well-being by controlling distressing and debilitating physical and emotional symptoms?
- Does your patient need both skilled palliative care and emotional support?
- Does your patient's family need support to provide care for your patient?
Financial Benefits of Hospice
- Your patient and family are covered by a comprehensive hospice benefit.
- Medicare and Medicaid provide comprehensive hospice coverage.
- Most private insurers who operate in the State of Oklahoma include a hospice benefit in their policies.
- Frontier Hospice covers anyone who falls through the cracks. Uninsured patients without financial means are provided comprehensive hospice services without discrimination and at no cost to your patient or family.
- Your patient's hospice benefit provides for all medical supplies, durable medical equipment, medications, and appropriate therapies related to the terminal condition.
- There are NO co-payments, deductibles, or exclusions.
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