After former President Carter’s announcement, many have questions about hospice care
Airdate: March 01, 2023
Ninety-eight-year-old former President Jimmy Carter announced recently that he was entering into hospice care. Even though many families have had a loved one who has opted for hospice, there are others who may not know what hospice is, what services it provides or may have heard some of the myths surrounding hospice.
Appearing The Spark Wednesday, Susan Resavy, Director of Family Services with Hospice of Central Pennsylvania explained what hospice care is and does,”those discussions with patients and families are really important in determining goals of care. And when you are at a point where your loved one is not really responding to aggressive treatment or maybe there aren’t any other options, and the focus becomes more comfort and quality of life. And how do we want to do this now that we know we have limited time? Hospice is a really good option because it allows the individual to receive care where they want to, which may be in their home, or it could be in a skilled nursing facility or assisted living or, you know, any situ, any living situation you want. And then how much care do you need physically and also emotionally. So hospice looks at the patient and the family as a unit of care. So it’s not the traditional medical model where all the attention is on the medicines and the physical. And yes, there’s a lot of attention on that because that’s why the patient is with us, because they have medical needs. But we also are there to help the family and the patient to just cope with what’s going on. How do we provide care? We’ve never done this before. I love my, you know, my mother, my husband, but I’m not a nurse. And so we do a lot of teaching. We provide services that help families with personal care and bathing. And we have nurses coming in, but we also provide social workers, chaplains, volunteers, actually even complementary therapies of massage and music as as very important pieces of this because it’s not all about the medical. So how you know, what’s on the patient’s mind, what does he or she need to take care of before the end of their life?”
A person is eligible for hospice care if they have been diagnosed with a end-of-life or terminal illness and have less than six months to live. Medicare and most insurance plans will pay for hospice care.
Dr. Maria Olender, Medical Director at Hospice of Central Pennsylvania was asked how a person is referred to hospice care,”Usually you will have a referral from your primary care physician or whichever specialty physician you see, they will send a referral to the hospice of your choice. You, as the patient, are able to say, you know, I want to sign up with this hospice or that hospice. The physician can make a recommendation, but ultimately it is the choice of the patient. Otherwise, a patient can call in themselves and say, you know, I have this disease process. I want to be evaluated for hospice care. Can you please send out a nurse so that we can talk about my disease process? What we will do is will get an order from your physician to see you If they feel that you’re terminally ill and eligible for hospice care, they will provide us an order. Typically, they fax over an order, submitted electronically. But we will get that order and we’ll be able to review your medical records, discuss with you what your goals of care are and if those are all aligned and consider appropriate.”
